Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story
by Synthesis
Summary: Officially over, check out the remake! To everyone who did read, many thanks for entertaining this humble, early effort.
1. The Death

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 1_**

"It's out of bullets! We've got it" screamed one of the pilots.

Flight Officer Christopher Walker, a noncommissioned Alliance mobile suit-commander, watched as his wing of OZ-07AMS _Aries_ surrounded the giant white-and-red mobile suit designated Gundam-Zero-Three. The machine guns in its head, as well as its arm-mounted gatlink, had been drained, and the pilot was outnumbered.

"Stay sharp! Don't assume anything!" ordered Walker as he quickly checked his port and starboard viewscreens. The Aries Suits stayed about forty meters away from their target, circle strafing it, but holding their fire. They were well trained and waiting for orders to open fire onto the doomed Gundam.

But not as well trained as Walker would have hopped. Walker's finger tightened around the flightstick's trigger, when his right wing suddenly flew forward. "Wait! Stop!" he screamed. 

"I'll show you what the Specials are made up!" he screamed over the radio channel to the Gundam.

He darted towards the Zero-Three, when a bright yellow flash ripped through the head-component of the Aries suit. 

"You fool! Why do you have to make that mistake now?" Walker screamed as his wingman's Aries exploded, and he slammed his fist against the control surfaces. A hail of fire erupted from behind him, from a group of brown mobile suits several kilometers off.

Walker recognized them. They weren't Leos. Custom Mobile Suits. The Maganac Corps.

_Is this my end? _he wondered, both shocked and embarrassed. He watched as his entire wing slowly began to crumble and explode under the hail of fire. A shot struck his port turbine, knocking him to the side. He quickly pulled backwards, desperately trying to reach higher altitude.

_God damn it people! Regroup! _He twisted around, and watched as they died. It was no use. Even two teams the Alliance Special Mobile Corps were outgunned when it came down to it. Out of the entire company that had  been destroyed, trying to protect Corsica. 

_Well, as least General Bonaparte is safe…_he thought grimly. He stared hatefully at the Gundam, which had left so many of his comrades dead. "All right…COME AND GET ME, YOU MONSTER!" 

He dove towards him, firing shots from his 120mm chain rifle, frantically trying to at least damage it. _Damn it, what does it take for you to fall…_

Walker didn't have a chance to find out. As he was about to finish the job and send this Gundam back to the hell it had originated in, another emerged from behind, whipping out its weapon, two giant heat shotels, and slammed them against the Aries as he turned around to face him. 

And that was it. He stood no chance.

As the heat shotels began crushing into the center fuselage of the Aries, Walker eased his grip on the flight-stick and began to lean back. Red lights flashed all over the diagnostics as the suit, Earth's current best air-capable model, began to rip itself apart. _This is dishonor…I have failed you, Lightning Count_.

He thought back to the words of his old friend and war-comrade, Lieutenant Zechs Merquise. _"You're planning to die for me, aren't you?"_

_"You told me once to fight for the future generations, sir. That is my principle now."_

Now, he deserved to die. It was a matter of principle…the future generations would suffer because of the inability of him and his wing. 

But he had been so close. So close to at least taking one of them with him. 

"I…I wanted to see what this machine was capable of…" he admitted grimly as electrical currents began to spread from the suit to his body, burning his internal organs and altering his heartbeat.

His vision darkened as the forward viewscreen cracked and shattered, glass fragments diving into his face. The outer components of the suit began to explode one after another. The last thing her heard was a voice over the channel. The Gundam pilot.

"I'm sorry…" he began. Walker realized he was only a boy…

_I'll take you with me, kid, _he thought amusingly to himself. The Gundam pilot wasn't a man or a woman, but just a little child. He, an Officer of the Alliance Specials Mobile Suit Corps, had died fighting a child.  

And with that, it was over. The Aries centerpiece exploded into a bright sphere of fire as the shotels sliced through. 


	2. The Recovery

[b]Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story[/b] ****

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story

**__**

Chapter 2

"His name is Walker, Christopher Berker Walker. In the Alliance, he ranks as a _Tokushi _Flight Officer, and is also a Knight in the Romefeller Foundation, through his service in the Specials." 

Alliance Officer Sally Po, director of the Third Federation Naval Hospital, made her report to Lady Une, an aide to the Specials Commander Treize Khushrenada. So far, she had been doing a majority of the talking, and was somewhat disappointed by Lady Une's lack of interest in what appeared to a brave Specials pilot who had given up his life in duty.

"History?" asked Une calmly.

Po consulted her records. "Born After Colony 176, in Liverpool, England, no parents, no family."

Une frowned. "No biological parents?"

"None. According to the records, he was artificially fertilized. Raised in a medical orphanage until he was thirteen, then left for the Corisca Engineering Institute. Stayed there till he was fifteen, when he was recommended to the Lake Victoria Academy. Continued engineering ties, but did study there for two years, when he became a member of the Specials. He served graduated with high marks, and befriend two other outstanding students."

Une's interest was sparked. "Who?"

"Uh…" said Po as she flipped through her records. "Lieutenant-Baron Zechs Merquise, and Baronet Lucrexia Noin, I believe"

_Not just an OZ pilot, but a friend of those two as well? This is becoming interesting…_ "Go on."

"After graduation he was placed in the 3rd Middle-East Specials Airborne, an Aries taskforce, which he later become commander of. Retained ties with Zechs Merquise, and served in several battles with him, including the taking of Luxemburg for the Alliance. Several awards of bravery in combat, merits for battle, recommendation from General Khushrenada of the Specials…"

"Mr. Treize?" asked Une, somewhat surprised. _There's more to this pilot then is apparent…_ "What was his latest immediate duty?"

"Uh…besides his final service to General Bonaparte, nothing out of the unusual…no, wait," Po flipped through her records. "Actually, he did request to become curator for a certain museum exhibit not long ago…"

"What was it?"

"The mobile suit prototype called 'Tallgeese', I believe." Po closed her records and led Une down a hallway in the hospital's left wing. "Apparently, he had some…special business with it."

"The Tallgeese? What would he want with that artifact?"

Po shrugged. "Ask him yourself," she said simply as Une entered the room. Inside, there was a single bed with a window view, and a body hooked up to an array of medical equipment. It was that of a young man with brown hair. He had a bandage wrapped around his head with a square of cloth over his left eye. "This is Officer Walker, Lady Une."

An artificial respiratory pump slowly did its work as it pumped oxygen into the man's lungs from a nearby tank. Other then that, and the occasional blinking of the lights on the equipment, the room was still. 

"Of course, it might be difficult, seeing how he has been in a comatose state since we recovered his body a week ago." Po chuckled at her own joke but stopped at Une's icy glare. "Anyway, it comes down to the reason I asked you here in the first place, ma'am."

"Which is?"

"Confirmation."

Une blinked. "What do you mean? Confirmation for what?"

"Whether or not you wish to continue life-support to Officer Walker. We're already fairly sure he's brain-dead. Now it's simply a matter of whether or not to allow nature to take its course." 

There was a pause. Une stared at the man…he wasn't very tall or largely built, and looked thin under the bedhseets. His hand was crossed over his chest, slowly rising and falling.

All in all, he didn't look the least bit remarkable, nor like the commander of the 3rd Middle-East Airborne.

"Unplug him."

"Excuse me?" asked Po, turning. 

"You asked for confirmation, and I'm giving it to you." Une narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "Let him die with dignity."

Po sighed, regretting she had asked Lady Une for this decision. "Very well then."

"Now, if you'll excuse me, officer, I've got other things to deal with, besides making decisions about what to do with vegetables." Une then spun on her heel, and left. _It's actually a pity…he gave up his life in battle. Mr. Treize would like him…_

Sally Po nodded and sighed, then turned to the life support console next to the bed. "Well, I suppose that's that. Good afternoon, Officer Walker." She tapped a finger against the consol. _I'll need another person to do this…_

She left the room, closing the door after her, to check on the next patient.

***

"I'm glad you could join me with this on such short notice, Otto," explained Po.

"It's quite all right," explained Captain Otto, also of the Specials. "I'm sure that Lieutenant Zechs would have wanted it this way."

Po nodded. "Did you know Walker?"

"Actually, no…I came into the scene shortly after Walker left for the 3rd Airborne." Otto entered the room shortly after Po, each taking a side of the bed. He looked blankly at Walker. "Too bad…he was still young."

She shrugged. After all, Walker was only a few months older then she was. "Well, you know what they say: in war, you are never to old to die." 

"I see." 

Po nodded and lifted up a flap on the right medical consol. Under it was a switch with a safety above it. She reached into the holster over her brown Alliance uniform and pulled out the hand-pistol, breaking the butt against the glass covering. She slowly put her hand against the switch, Otto doing the same with his own weapon. "On my mark."

Otto nodded. "Of course."

In accordance with the laws of the United Earth Alliance, mercy killings like this could only be legally done in hospitals, with two operators. Both had to cut the circuit powering the life support system, though only one of the switches at random did the actual job. This way, neither operator could be held totally accountable.

Sally Po flipped the switch down, Otto doing the same in unison. The lights flickered and faded, as the life support died, and Po glanced at her watch. 

"Well, that's that," she commented. "Now, it's up to him. Tell me, Officer Otto, do you Specials have any sort of…training…in this? Survival?"

Despite himself, Otto smiled briefly. "No, not really. If Walker survives, it will be in his own account."

"I see. Sorry to bother you, Captain Otto."

"Oh, it's quite all right, for a matter this delicate. The confirmation of my fellow Specials officer was done by…who again?"

"Lady Une."

"Of course. Thank you, Officer Po." He raised his hand in a salute, and Sally Po returned it, as they both left the small room. The pump acting as the artificial lung and respiratory system for Walker slowed to halt. 

The room remade silent and motionless, with the exception of what was happening visible through the window. Outside, several workers were busy loading several large crates onto a flatbed. Perhaps because of clumsiness, the crates toppled over, the workers scattering around madly. 

Outside as the workers screamed instructions to each other, a shadow fell over the body of Walker as a cloud passed by the sun. Walker stirred slightly, his eyelids twitched slightly, and opened slowly. The grogginess began to vanish from his corneas, restored with a raw-burning hate in them.

_The Gundam…_

He pulled out his arms from underneath the sheets and grabbed the metal frame of the bed, pulling himself up. It was painful, though her considered a necessary first step.

_The Gundam Zero-Four…_

Gritting his teeth until he thought they would break over themselves, he forced himself up, and tried to move his legs. When that failed to work, he slowly turned his body around, ripping out IVs and the sensor cords from his body. He lifted his bed sheet and looked at his bare, immobile legs. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with precious oxygen, blood beginning to course through his brain. 

He had a great deal of work to do. It was critical he returned to OZ. 


	3. The Promotion

[b]Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story[/b]

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story  Chapter 3 

"I want out…now…" 

Walker stared at the receptionist for the West Wing of Third Federation Naval Hospital, leaning forward on her desk for support, with his better eye. He hadn't removed the cotton batch over his left eye, but was now clad in a medical tunic he had retrieved from a rack.

It took a few moments for her brain to process the command. "…Excuse me, sir?"

"I want to be _discharged from this hospital," he repeated. He couldn't go on like this—eventually, he knew he would collapse. "What part of that don't you understand?"_

The receptionist blinked and slowly nodded, then turned to her files on her desk. "Very well, sir. And you're name?"

"Walker. Christopher Walker, Officer for the Specials," he explained, propping his arms against the table. 

She nodded and looked through the record. "Ah, yes, here we are. Officer Walker…" She blinked. "Oh, well this is unusual."

"What?" he rasped.

"You're name in on my list, but it's been crossed out." She looked up at the pale Specials officer. "That only happens when one of the patients dies in the hospital."

"DIED?" he asked loud enough to cause more then a few people to look in his direction. 

She nodded nervously. "Uh…yes…according to this, you were in a coma for some time…about a week. A Specials Officer gave us permission for a mercy-killing." _Oh, he's not going to like this…_

Walker was silent for a moment, his face rapidly loosing the little blood flow it had manage to acquire, as well as color. "Who?" he finally manage to ask venomously.

"Uh…Colonel Une, I believe…"

_I suppose that explains why my life-support was off when I woke up… He indginantly began thinking of a suitable punishment to inflict upon the Colonel when this was all over. "I'd also like back my clothes and personal effects..."_

She frowned. _Personal effects…?_

"…or anything that was recovered with my body."

The receptionist turned her head to the side gently, thinking about it. "Oh, I'm afraid I wouldn't know about that sort of thing…"

"Damn it!" screamed Walker, slamming his fist against desk, a feat that took up a great deal of his remaining strength. He turned and began to leave, only to collapse on his right leg. 

"Sir…!" A brown-clad Alliance guard rushed over to him, trying to help him onto his feet. 

In a brief moment, Walker pulled the guard's pistol out of his holster. And shot him. 

***

"Lady Une?" asked Specials Cadet Brendan. 

Une looked back as she was about to board a shuttle, set for Luxemburg, to meet with General Khushrenada. "What is it?" she asked impatiently.

"It's a report from the Alliance Hospital…it's on that man, Officer Walker."

"What about him?" Une looked at her watch edgily. 

"He was…he was just discharged from the hospital." The Specials Cadet looked back at his report. "Though the word 'discharged' is over crossed and replaced by the word 'escaped'."

"He escaped?" asked Une, pausing at the door of the shuttle. _How did he survive, much less escape?_

"Affirmative."

"Well then, why aren't you tracking him?" she demanded angrily.

"Well, Colonel…he's…he's not exactly our enemy. He's a Specials Pilot, and a wounded one at that. He's shot a single hospital guard, though, but it's not fatal. Furthermore, Officer Walker is quite critically wounded."

"Then why haven't you captured him? Why have you even bothered me with such a trivial matter?" demanded Lady Une. "Are you incompetent?!"

Brendan shook his head nervously. "No! No, ma'am, no! It's just…well…he's hiding somewhere inside the hospital, with a receptionist, we believe. And he's threatening that, unless you agree to speak with him, he'll execute her."

"What?" barked Une. "You're joking!"

"No, ma'am. He's doing it on the charges of 'badgering a military officer'. He really wants to speak with you, ma'am."

Une felt the frown form over her face. "He's holding a hostage? This isn't the sort of actions that a Specials Officer is supposed to take."

"I'm sure he's quite angry, ma'am, for having a mercy killing performed on him and being able to live to tell about it," muttered Brendan sheepishly.

"Where did you find that out?" demanded Une angrily.

Brendan recoiled at her stare. "I'm sorry, ma'am, that was breaching protocol…it was on this report." He held it up to Lady Une, who adjusted his glasses and inspected it.

Brendan swallowed nervously as she read it, wondering if this would effect his future possibility on a promotion, as Une set the report down. 

"Fine. Inform Officer Walker that I'll meet with him shortly, and tell him not to do anything stupid from this point on."

"Yes, ma'am." Brendan gave the salute, and turned to leave.

***

This sort of thing was notoriously out of character for Walker.

Here he was, in the basement of a Alliance Naval Hospital, dressed in a white medical tunic, holding a receptionist hostage. 

_I never thought I'd stoop down to this level_, he admitted to himself. He lay propped up against one of the cold steel walls, his arms casually resting over his knees.

The Receptionist, who's eyes remained fixed on the pistol dangling from Walker's casual hands, lay against the opposite wall, very quiet. She was even younger then Walker, and not even a real trained Alliance officer—she was just a Receptionist.

Walker noticed her staring at the pistol hanging from his pale hand. It hadn't even numbed completely yet, though the chances he could shoot her if she ran was largely in his favor.

"What's you're name, miss?" he asked. 

The Receptionist looked up. Walker's voice wasn't that of a criminal or a kidnapper. It was slightly above normal pitch, and very unremarkable sounding. Nonetheless, she didn't respond. 

Walker sighed, and he put the pistol down against the floor. "Calm down. I'm not going to shoot you. See?" He used his functioning leg to kick the pistol away towards her. "And I'm pretty sure you're not going to shoot me as well, being wounded like this." He grunted and straightened himself up.

She nodded nervously. "Diana."

"Diana, huh? Well, you already know my name." He winced in pain slightly, then adjusted his leg. It was wrapped in bandages, but the bleeding had started ever since he had fallen on it. 

"Why are you doing this?" she asked in a tiny voice.

Walker sighed indignantly. "Because, as a dead Specials Officer, the Alliance won't take me very seriously. Furthermore, I can't report to my Special superiors."'

"Why?"

He grit his teeth, an accumulation of pain and annoyance. "Because, I'm dead! Or have you already forgotten that." He writhed with pain, then shifted his weight off that leg.

She nodded her head humbly. "Why do you need me then?"

He smiled faintly, closing his eyes. "Because, _OZ_, has an excellent reputation of dealing with hostage situations and negotiation, or so I've heard. Now I'm going to find out if that's true or just Alliance Propaganda."

"Very clever, Officer."

"What?" demanded Walker, turning his head. In the shadows stood the outline of a woman dressed in a red military uniform. 

An Alliance Noncommissioned Officer. Or _Specials_. 

Colonel Une.

"UNE!" he barked angrily, falling forward and reaching for the pistol. The female Special Officer leaped forward, landing on his hands and kicked the pistol out of the way. She pulled out her own pistol and aimed it at Walker's bandaged head. He looked up with his one exposed eye and frowned.

"Christopher Walker," she said apathetically, looking at him with her trademark narrow expression. She turned to the Receptionist. "You're free to go, but the guards surrounding the basement exits will want a report. So will the press."

She nodded dumbly and began to run off, but paused. "Will he be all right?" she asked.

Une's thin smile disappeared and was replaced by a frown. "Why do you care?" she asked.

"Well…he didn't seem like a bad man, and I am a nurse part-time," she explained.

From the floor, Walker writhed in pain. "Could you please…get off of my hand…"

Une looked down, decided that he was probably not a threat, and removed her boot, leaving an imprint on the bandages around the hand. "Why did you do this?" she asked.

"Because, you were just going to leave me here to die…I know that for a fact…"

_This is what happens when mercy-killings aren't successful…_"I think there's more to it, to be honest."

Walker nodded, grinning in pain as he flexed his hand. "Yes, actually." He tried to breath. "I wanted to see if it was true that _OZ_ was good at dealing with negotiations. I guess it was."

"You'd better believe it," she smirked at him. She turned back to Diana. "So, he hasn't harmed you in any way?"

She shook her head. "No, absolutely not. I don't think he could have, to be honest…"

"Don't underestimate a Specials Officer," she warned her. "No matter how wounded he might appear to be." She looked back down at Walker. "Get up," she ordered.

Walker nodded, coughing out amounts of blood onto the metal floor. He lifted himself up and fell against the wall. "What do you want, Colonel?" he asked. 

She smirked. "You're a strange man, you know that? You're trying desperately to sound dangerous, when in reality you're voice is that of a Engineer."

_Une's smart, I'll give her that…_ "Did you just come here to gloat, or do you have some sort of alternative motive?"

Une crossed her arms, and looked up, in such a way that the light reflected in her glasses like two dishes. "Actually, yes. You've shot an Alliance hospital guard in the arm, and kidnapped a Receptionist for the hospital. For that you'd probably get about twenty to twenty five years. You haven't even been alive that long. Then again, you may have also attempted to kill an Alliance Noncommissioned Officer. You'll get twenty guaranteed for that alone."

"Fifty five years?" he asked. _I'll be old and wrinkled by then…_he thought with a grin. _Well, I can always return to being an Engineer_.

"However, that's not important. What's important is you're battle record…"

"What battle record?" he demanded in his Engineer-voice. 

"You've been blooded against _two_ Gundams. Specifically, Gundam Zero-Three and Zero-Four. Currently, you're the only soldier in the Alliance or the Specials whos ever survived a direct encounter with not only one, but _two _of the Colonies' new weapons. As a result, Treize-sama has decided you should be promoted."

For once, Walker blinked first. "Promoted?"

"To the position of _Tokushi_, 1st Lieutenant."

'Lieutenant' Walker sat there, too stunned to say anything. Not enough blood had been flowing to his brain to make sense of this.

"You're luck Trieze-sama likes soldiers who are willing to give their lives up in battle. Otherwise, I'd have it my way and have you arrested." Une put a fist to her hip and left. "You'd tour of duty is in one week. You've got that long heal from your injuries and prepare for _Operation Daybreak_." She walked down the corridor and left him with the Receptionist. "Besides, I honestly don't give a damn about Alliance guard dogs anyway…"

After she disappeared into the shadows Walker took a deep breath and fell against the floor. 

"What's the matter?"

"I'm…gonna see…if I can just die right here…and avoid my tour of duty," he informed her, smiling to himself. He crawled up into the fetal position and closed his eyes. 

_Who knows, maybe I can…_


	4. The Coup d'etat

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story 

Chapter 4 

_Lieutenant Walker._

_ _

_LIEUTENANT Walker._

_ _

_Walker rolled the name in his mind over and over again, trying to make sense of it. He had come out of his coma, sure enough, if only to prove Lady Une and the others wrong. Still, he hadn't expected the promotion. His final mission, to protect General Bonaparte's command-airship from being destroyed, had been successful. However, his entire wing group had been lost in the process. _

"But what am I supposed to do? Refuse?"

He's command was now assigned to the newly-created 4th OZ Airborne, which wasn't all that different from his last command other then the fact that there weren't stationed in Saudi Arabia, and most of the pilots were rookies. It was somewhat degrading, he realized that, but it wasn't a total loss: at least, he could find out what the _future generations were even like. And if anything, it had give him an excuse to heal from his injuries sustained earlier._

The day before, he had received an encoded transmission. It was from Treize Khushrenada himself, instructing him to meet with a few other select pilots who had battled with a Gundam at a small staging base. Zechs and Noin were among them. The thought of meeting Zechs again after his failure made Walker sick to his stomach. 

"Sir, are you all right?" asked a young officer sitting to Walker's right. 

He remembered where he was: at a small outpost about fifty kilometers from the Nairobi Air Force Base. Or, on a dirt road to it, at least. He was sitting in the back of an army truck, next to a few other young Specials Officers. 

_The only reason, he thought forlornly, __that he is calling me 'Lieutenant' is because I have a white single-breasted black uniform and a cape…_

"I'm fine," he said calmly. _After all, we're just going to betray and terminate our Alliance Commanders, then men and women whom we've been working with for years. No big deal._

The thought of Operation Daybreak, despite its obvious importance, made Walker sick to his stomach. When he joined the Specials, a common Weapons Engineer, he had thought he was merely joining the Elite Corps of the Alliance Soldiers. That's what the 'Specials' had been. _This wasn't just being a group of Elite Soldiers. __This was a coup d'etat. _

The junior officer nodded quietly, then turned away. A moment later, he looked back at Walker. "Excuse me, sir, but are you the new commander of the 4th Airborne?"

Walker nodded absently. 

"I see," said the junior quietly to himself.

***

In the New Edwards Air Force base, many of the Alliance Pacifists met to discuss the plans for the future. Among them was Marshal Noventa, Supreme Commander of the Alliance Military, as well as General Septem, commander of the Alliance Space Armada. Information had been leaked through lower channels that this was actually a meeting between the command leaders of the Special Mobile Suit Corps.

For Treize Khusrenada, it was all coming into focus now.

Marshal Noventa, old from age, lines worn onto his face, stepped up to the podium. Silence was held for the highest-ranking military officer of the Alliance. The same issue was on everyone's mind.

"In the beginning, the Alliance was a deterrent force to other growing military powers. But today, the Alliance itself has become a military threat to the world. There is no need to spend more money to increase our armed forces and to further develop new weapons. This is the path the Alliance must choose to take."

There was a brief silence of surprise. General Septem stood up quickly.

"Sir, are you suggesting an arms-reduction?" 

Noventa nodded. "A reduction would be only the beginning. Eventually, hopefully perhaps, I believe we should eventually disarm ourselves complete."

A few voices muttered among the audience of listeners. General Bentz, another well-respected elder of the Alliance, stood up. "I agree completely," he said calmly, to the shock of his supporters.

"General Bentz!" cried Septem. 

"We once fought hard. We had to in order to make it possible for us to reunite the world. But somehow, before we realized it, our once honorable cause has become warped. We have to stop the bloodshed now..." he admitted grimly. 

Septem himself was next to speak, in an uncharacteristically meek manner. Trieze himself sat behind Septem, next to Lady Une, quietly watching over. 

_It's almost time…_

_ _

***

"Lieutenant Walker!" shouted a voice. 

Walker pulled at the collar of his uniform in the sweltering Nairobi heat. _How do the locals deal with this? he thought, rubbing his face with a kerchief. It wasn't helping that part of the new uniform for a 1st Lieutenant was a heavy black cape hanging over his left shoulder. What purpose it might have served, Walker had no idea, though it was very obtrusive. The truck came to a stop, and he climbed off, scattering dust everywhere._

"Which one of you runts is Walker?" demanded a voice. 

Walker turns to see a large man dressed in a black Specials uniform, with sunglasses and a cap, but without the cape. He found himself frowning, and separated from the rest of the group.

"I'm Walker," he said unemotionally, raising his hand briefly.

The large man nodded, then grabbed Walker's hand and forcefully shook it. "Captain Gozart," he said promptly.

Walker nodded, pulling his hand free. "Captain."

"Everyone calls me 'Blue', though," he admitted gruffly. Then he got to the point. "So, what would you say about me showing you to the brats you're gonna be leading into battles?"

"That would be nice," he commented apathetically.

Slightly disappointed in his new superior, Walker followed Gozart down the dust road into a makeshift camp set inside an unusual geological formation. 'Blue' continued to lecture him and express his sympathy for Walker by criticizing his new subordinates. 

_He doesn't sound like a Specials Officer, he thought, becoming disgruntled. He began to wonder if he had even come to the right place._

He wasn't wondering for long: Blue led him up to the vista at the top of the formation, where Walker made out the unmistakable figures of several black and, Walker judged, new OZ-07 AMS 'Aries', with familiar yellow OZ markings on them. Unlike the earlier mobile suits of the Specials, these did not have the Alliance crest on their sides. Walker stopped in his footsteps at the vista.

"Impressed, huh kid?" asked Blue, though it really wasn't a question.

Walker nodded, giddy with delight. As an engineer _and a mobile suit pilot, he appreciated this sort of machinery more then most people. And while he had piloted Leos, Tragos, and even the amphibious Cancer, the Aries was his vehicle of choice, as with so many Special Pilots. _

"This babies are fresh from the MS manufacturing plant at Corisca, probably one of the last shipments we got from there," commented Gozart. "Shall we go down?"

Walker nodded wordlessly, and the two proceeded down to the bottom of the geological formation. "How come you haven't been detected by the Alliance Sensor scans?" asked Walker as he made his way down the naturally formed steps.

Gozart shrugged. "It's the whole weird formation…apparently, there's more pure iron and nickel here in the ground then there is dirt and sand. Spots like these are all over the Nairobi Sector…they'd probably be used for mining if MS were made out of steel rather then titanium. The important thing is that they jam up most magnetic scans naturally."

Walker nodded. "Very clever," he said sincerely. 

"Yes, well, it was Lieutenant Zechs' idea."

_I should have known. Walker followed Gozart down to the bottom of the formation, a strange combination of an exposed underground cavern large enough to hold a dozen mobile suits, several tents, and even support vehicles. _

"You go get yourself comfortable," he said as he gestured to the row of Aries' standing at attention. "I'll go find the kids your gonna be babysitting for the rest of your service life." He laughed and turned around.

"Uh….Captain Gozart!" called out Walker. Blue stopped in his steps. He was about to ask a question when Gozart answered it for him.

"It's the one on the left with the commander-insignia on it," he said, pointing. 

"Thanks!" said Walker, leaving. _He doesn't seem like such a bad guy, he admitted, climbing up the service gantry. The catwalk was a dozen or so meters above the ground, at level with the cockpit-centerpiece module. However, what was of most interest to Walker was the large rifle the Aries held. He walked up to the barrel and looked into it: the caliber of the ammunition was 120mm, and he could easily fit his gloved hand into it. With no carbon scoring or residue, it was apparent that the rifle was just as new as the mobile suit._

"Sir! Is something the matter?"

Walker turned and blinked, taking his finger out of the rifle. Climbing up the gantry ladder was a woman with short red hair and a tanned complexion. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"I assume that, since you're expressing such interest in this machine, you must be the new Lieutenant." As she climbed up, Walker noted her tone of voice: straightforward and meaningful, but tough. And there was an undeniable rookie quality in her voice. "Is something the matter with the Aries?"

"No, this suit is in excellent condition," he said, standing back from the rifle tip. The rookie pilot walked up to him and nodded. He turned around to face the pilot. "And you are…?"

At her appearance he jolted back and fell against the Aries' armored fuselage. 

She was _huge_. Walker had to look up to stare at the bottom of her chin. He hadn't realized how huge she was when she was climbing up the ladder. 

"Officer-Cadet Kirishima Kanna," she said, introducing herself, saluting. She stuck out a hand.

Walker nodded. "Off…_Lieutenant_ Walker." He slowly stuck out his own hand. She quickly closed her hand around his, then shook it, the noise of his joints popping clear over the sound of the base activity. 

"Honor to meet you, sir," she said, shaking his hand. By the time she decided to let go, Walker was nearly on his knees from pain. He struggled to regain his composure, jamming his right hand into his pocket, standing as straight as possible to avoid looking up so much. Then another thought occupied his mind. _Kirishima…where have I heard of that name before?_

"Likewise. I assume you're attached to the 4th Airborne?" he asked. 

"Yes, me and a few other pilots, sir."

"That's good," he said. _Can she fit into the cockpit?_

_ _

__"Heard you fought against the Gundams," she said, a note of admiration in her voice. 

"I suppose you could say that. It didn't work out very well," he said quickly, trying to hide painful memories. 

"But you survived."

"That is overrated," he explained to her.

She cocked her head to the side. She was currently dressed out of uniform, in a black tank top and jeans. Maybe they didn't make uniforms that big. He noticed what appeared to be a bandage wrapped around her forehead.

"Uh…are you injured?" he asked, pointing at it.

"Oh, this?" she put a finger against her forehead. "It's has some cultural significance."

"You're Japanese?" he asked. It was a reasonable question, though technically, there was no single nation with the name 'Japan' any longer. There hadn't been since the formation of the Alliance. And Kirishima herself looked like one of the Nairobi Natives slightly, though her name seemed familiar. __

"Yes, sir." 

"I see." 

There was a silence. To Walker, it was a painful, nerve-wracking silence. Fortunately, Gozart came to the rescue.

"HEY! YOU TWO! ONLY MECHANICS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE UP THERE OUTSIDE LAUNCHING! Get down before you break you're necks!" he shouted loudly. 

Kanna gave a brief military salute to Gozart. "Sorry sir. I was just showing the Lieutenant his new Mobile Suit."

"Yea, well, let him go gaga over it in his own free time. Be in the briefing tent in ten!" He left gruffly, just as he had entered. 

Kanna turned back to Walker, who had gone back to inspecting the mobile suit. "Don't mind Captain Gozart, sir…he's always like that. You can stay up here if you'd like."

Walker nodded absently, feeling the contours of the Aries cockpit. Kanna walked over to him and crouched downwards, to be at eye-level.

"Would you like to see the inside?" she asked.

Walker blinked. "Yes, actually."

Kanna walked along the gantry and found a small toolbox. She reached inside and pulled out a small metal card, with the letters 'OZ' etched clearly on the back, and gave it to Walker. The device was the key unit for the MS.

"Thank you," he said as he struck the flat button on the thin key card. The cockpit module opened slowly; the Aries had an usual shaped cockpit that was different from the Leo or the Tragos but provided better armor protection; and Walker stepped inside. He placed both his hands on the two flightsticks. 

_It's exactly like I remember, he thought. _

Kanna smiled, feeling she was only now really in the presence of one of OZ's newest Lieutenants. 

***

Walker and his unit were stationed at Camp 2-D. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th OZ Airborne were stationed at other camps, 1-A, 2-A, and 3-B respectfully. Lieutenants Zechs and Noin were stationed with the 1st Airborne, the primary strike force against the Nairobi Airbase inOperation Daybreak and the rest of the coup d'etat. It consisited for around thirty Aries, as well as whatever Pro-OZ forces had infiltrated the Nairobi Airbase in the previous weeks. 

"Lieutenant Zechs!" 

Zechs Merquise turned in the command tent of the camp 1-A. Several green-clad OZ Infantry, as well as petty officers, stood at the consoles, monitoring transmissions around the Nairobi area. 

"Nairobi Airbase is asking us what the purpose of our visit to the area is."

Zechs paused for a moment. "Tell them we're here just for some practice drills. One of the local Governors suggested we practice some maneuvers over the coast of Mombassa."

"Affirmative." The Officer turned back to his console. 

***

The New Edwards Base had no idea of the events that were going to transpire there soon. Everything was working exactly as Treize had planned. 

"It is only natural that the colony sides have a strong mistrust towards us. That is why we need to do something as soon as possible." Marshal Noventa's forehead was burrowed even more in concern. 

Bentz nodded. "I couldn't agree more. Let's start a new chapter of humanity with beginning peace talks."

Noventa nodded earnestly. "It's not only with the colonies that we need to start talks with. We also need to start talks with ourselves."

Septem frowned unhappily, not exactly thrilled about where this was going. "Sir, but what about those new mobile suits?"

"I believe that, if they learn that our intentions are towards peace, they will lose their objectives. We will begin negotiations. And that way, the path we have overlooked can be recovered again."

From above, Treize smiled thinly. "History seems to have taken a wrong turn."

"But sir…" began Lady Une.

"Do not worry, my Lady. Not until the final curtain rises."

Noventa continued, hope in his eyes. "Then I would like to move our discussion to the actual agenda for a peaceful negotiation. First..."

The Field Marshal was cut short and his fate was sealed, when an explosion rocked the Inner-Hall.

"What was that?"

A Specials Officer ran into the hall. "Sir! We're under attack! The base in now under enemy attack!"

"What?" asked Noventa as he stared a the giant wall-screen. A huge image of the Gundams formed on it. "Oh no…"

The Gundams Zero-One through Four broke through the defensive barrier of Leos, destroying anything that came into their field of vision. Inside the heavily-shielded New Edwards Base compound, Treize Khushrenada checked his watch, then turned to his aide.

"Lady, the curtain has risen. Let us get our plan started as well."

Une nodded obediently and took out a small pocket-computer computer, then pressed a button. 

***

"Lieutenant Zechs! Operation Daybreak is now underway!" announced a female officer over the channel.

Zech nodded and answered. "All right. Dispatch all fighters!" He was in a MS carrier, flying toward Nairobi. 

"Attention! All Aries pilots! You have permission to leave the camp for the Nairobi Airbase! The first wing must leave in five minutes!" The voice, that of a woman with brown hair in a ponytail in a black Specials uniform, repeated the message over the intercom. Walker quickly walked pass her, greeting her.

"Officer Lyn," he said briefly as he passed and saluted.

Lyn, after closing the channel with Zechs, adjusted her thin headset and nodded. "Congratulations on the promotion, Officer Walker. Or should _Lieutenant_ Walker."

Walker shook his head. "Please. Not to me. That title gives me the shivers," he admitted. He and Lyn had both served as engineers at Corisca a few years ago. "_Walker _is fine. Just fine. Or Comrade Walker."

Lyn nodded. "Okay, Walker. Sorry I can't give you a hug, but I'm kind of busy." She punched in some keys on the console, and a screen readout of the camp's twelve Aries MS came up. Those that were ready for launch were highlighted in green.

Walker thought about it for a moment, and then laughed. "Oh yes, I see. A joke. Funny," he said in his usual indifferent voice. He patted Lyn's shoulder, when the pager on his belt went off. He looked at it and pulled it off, inspecting it. 

"Those things have sound transmission too, you know that?" asked Lyn dryly.

Walker looked at her. "I knew that." He located the tiny button and pressed down on it.

"WALKER! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING STILL HERE! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE READY, DAMN IT! Zechs and his team have already left!" screamed the pager.

"Gozart's your superior?" asked Lyn. Walker nodded, and she shook her head. "You have my sympathy."

Walker as tempted to childishly stick out his tongue, thought the thought of Zechs still haunted his mind. He pressed another key on the pager. "Uh…I'm sorry sir, but I was delayed by a certain female Officer. I'll be there shortly."

"YOU'D BETTER!" the voice yelled. "The final briefing will be in the air after you launch. MOVE, SOLDIER!"

"Yes sir." He hooked the pager to his belt again and took off. "We'll talk later, all right?"

"No problem, Walker." Lyn returned to her job of coordinating the Aries.

It took about thirty seconds for Walker to get to his Aries, and he was somewhat embarrassed to see that nearly all of the other eleven were ready to go, but waiting on him, the Lieutenant. He sighed, climbed up the gantry, where he was greeted by his personal mechanic. The mechanic bowed politely, and Walker climbed into the cockpit, putting on the small headset. He had already discarded his cape, with good reason, as it was uncomfortable in the cockpit. 

"Attention, all Special…" he began, then paused. Walker realized his mistake and relaxed his arms a bit, letting them hang from the flightsticks, then pulled his goggles over his eyes. "Attention, all _OZ_ Aries Troops! Prepare for launch on my count!"

"NOW!" screamed a voice over the channel. Gozart, again, from the command tent.

One by one, the Aries began lifting up into the air, then retracting their spindly legs for flight-mode, clutching their large 120mm rifles. Walker looked around for any immediate dangers as he launched, then forced himself to relax. _First time since getting killed…_he thought dryly. 

"All right, people, you know what to do! Sampson, Bishop, Carver, take the left! Kirishima, you're on my back! Everyone else, take the right!" 

_I really need to learn the rest of their names…_

_Presuming they are all good enoughsurvive, this is. _

The 4th Airborne was joined by countless other Aries divisions from the former-Special Mobile Suit Corps. Eventually, they dotted the skies like lotus, the sound of their jet engines nearly masking their intentions. It didn't take long for them to show up on the sensor grid at the Nairobi Airbase. However, this wouldn't make that much of a difference, and inside the base, all hell broke loose. 

"My God…how many Aries troops are there?" demanded Sergeant Corozan, in command of the Nairobi Airbase, screaming to be heard over the noise. 

"We've picked up nearly two hundred and thirty, all from the Specials Group." 

"I don't understand…how could that many have evaded our sensor grid?" Corozan bit his lip. "All right, dispatch all Leos now!" He turned around and prepared to enter combat in his own Leo suit, then turned back to the communications officer. "What's the matter now?"

"I'm sorry sir! Some Leo groups have already been launched, but they're not responding! They aren't even turning their guns towards the enemy!"

"What?" demanded Corozan. "What's going on? We don't even have any Specials stationed here…do we?"

The Communications Officer didn't answer immediately. "All right, we've got to remedy this situation…put me on line with whatever Leo commanders we have responding that have been deployed."

"Yes sir." The Officer struck a few keys on the keyboard, and a video-image of a Leo came up. Inside that specific Leo with Lieutenant Icher of the 54th Leo Assault Troops. 

"Icher, do you hear me?" he demanded. "What's the situation?"

Icher responded immediately. "Sergeant, it's hard to describe…it's actually very quiet here. Really eerie…the Aries haven't reached the outer perimeter yet. I've got two other Leos with me right now."

"Only two? What about the rest?"

Icher shrugged in his cockpit. "I don't know, sir. We saw a few pass by earlier around the main hangar, but that was quite strange too. They weren't talking on the channel, and they didn't even respond to our hails for an update."

There was a pause, and Icher adjusted his headset. "Sergeant? Sergeant, are you there?"

"Listen, get you're unit back to the main hangar, meet up with the rest of the _loyal_ Leo troops. Something very odd is about to happen…" Corozan said grimly, as he watched the hundreds of red sensor-blips representing the Specials Aries Troops. "I'll be meeting with you in my own Leo."

"Affirmative, sir." Icher frowned as he closed the channel, not completely sure what was going on. His wing, who had been listening in on the conversation, turned their suits towards him.

"What was that about?" asked one.

"I…I have no idea," said Icher slowly, looking around. 

"Ahhhcckkk!" Icher turned his head just in time to see the Leo to his left fall to an exploding shell from a dober gun. He instinctively closed his eyes to avoid being blinded from the explosion as the brown MS detonated, though his remaining wingman wasn't so wise.

"Scramble, NOW!" he screamed. 

"Ahgg….sir! I can't see anything!" 

"Soyinka! Behind you!"

A brown Leo came from behind, bringing down its beam saber on Soyinka's Leo from behind, then drove the weapon deep into the suit. It collapsed to the ground, sparked a bit, then exploded in a fiery round cascade.

"SOYINKA!" screamed Icher, before firing directly into the Leo. The enemy Leo expertly raised its round titanium shield, protecting itself form the stream of 105mm rounds. It marched right up to Icher's Leo, then drove the beam saber into it, like a spear. It hung there for a moment, and the attacker let go of it, stepping away. The Leo shuddered forward and exploded in a bright cascade of light. 

Inside the briefly-lit cockpit of the Leo, the pilot smiled. "This is _Black Knight_, to Black Bishop. I have intercepted transmission that Sergeant Corozan will be joining the battle soon. Inform Black Group to display signals and come out of hiding."

Two Aries bearing OZ colors descended down on him and he turned. They floated around a bit and raised their weapons, as if they were going to strike. However, in the nick of time, Black Knight activated his signal: a red flash from the Leo's otherwise yellow camera eye. _Hope this works…_

There was a painful pause, and the two Aries returned the red signals and took off towards the center of the base. Over him, over two hundred Aries flew past, ignoring him for the most part. He took a sigh of relief: they had identified him as one of their allies. The Leo moved forward to where the two Aries had been and picked up its heavy dober gun. 

"This is Black Knight, former-Alliance Officer Mazuri. I've just destroyed three Alliance Leos, and am heading to the rendezvous point. Just for the record." 

***

At New Edwards, the situation grew even worse. 

"Dispatch all mobile suits! There are only two enemies!" ordered the Commander. 

"Sir! There are emergency calls from both the Fairbanks and Nairobi Bases! It's a rebellion…certain MS teams have been revolting all through the Alliance!" screamed one of the operators. 

_Field Marshal Noventa evacuated with Treize Khusrenada…I don't feel good about this…_The commander was about to issue orders when another officer spoke out.

"Commander! Reports of insurrection are coming in from all over the globe! They want to talk to Field Marshal Noventa!"

"What?!"

***

Two hours after the Specials left for their 'last mission', Nairobi had nearly fallen. Corozan and his personal MS team had their backs against the wall, outnumbered and out skilled.

"Sergeant! We can't hold on! We must surrender!"

Corozan grit his teeth. "What are you saying? Are you one of them as well?!"

"Sergeant!" cried the pilot, shortly before Corozan blasted two holes into the Alliance Leo with his shoulder-mounted cannons. Unremorsefully, he turned back to the forward viewscreen. "I will never let those Special's brats succeed with their plot!"

Corozan now stood alone, his MS positioned behind a piece of fallen debris from the base. A green Aries descended down on him, and the pilot opened the channel.

"This base is now under our control!" the pilot announced. She gave a short smirk and continued. "Surrender now!"

_That must be Instructor Noin… "Don't be stupid, you traitors!"_

"Don't you smell it? The revolution's finally here!" she cried jubilantly.

"Shut up!" he barked. These were his final words, however, as Noin let loose with her 120mm rapid-fire cannon and shredded the Leo into pieces. The last thing Corozan saw was another Leo firing a rocket from its bazooka onto one of his soldiers, then flashing its ominous red signal. 

_It's too late…we should have never trusted OZ…now we die for our mistakes._

***

"Tell them to stop fighting!" shouted Noventa as he watched the battle unfold, feeling worse every moment. "We're seeking peace with the colonies!"

One of the Alliance Officers quickly replied, but Noventa turned his attention to Treize, who stood up.

"You're Excellency, we must evacuate at once," he said calmly, as though he was unaffected by the events transpiring.

Noventa blinked. "But, we…"

"If you still want to seek a peace with them, very well, but I retain the responsibility of protecting you while you do so," he informed Noventa politely, the same way an adult might talk to a rich child. 

"I don't need your sarcasm," he replied dryly, but frowned. "But, no, I don't intend to die here, either. For the sake of the peace negotiations!"

"Thank you. Then, please use our high-speed evacuation jet. It's always on standby for immediate take off." 

This, to Noventa, was uncharacteristic of the apathetic Trieze Khushrenada. "I'm frankly surprised to hear your kind offer." 

"Your Excellency, we are still part of the Alliance Armed Forces."

Noventa nodded quickly. "You're right. I accept you're offer."

A Special Officer rushed to Noventa's side. "Sir, if you'll follow me…"

In the Command Center, Alliance Officers remained at their posts, ready to stay till the bitter end.

"Sir! Asia, Europe, Africa, North America…Alliance bases all over the globe have fallen to the rebels one by one!" cried out one of the communication officers at New Edwards. 

"We must inform Field Marshal Noventa! Where is he?"

"I'm sorry sir, we can't seem to locate him."

"What's going on?" he demanded. The entire base shook as the Gundams drove their weapons through the armored bulkheads. Outside the base, two high-speed evac-jets with OZ markings sat, ready for takeoff. One of them was larger then the other, and Noventa was boarding the larger one, alongside several other Alliance Military Elders, by black-clad Special officers. Noventa dimly noted that, while the Specials were anxious to help them, none of them were following him onto the shuttle. 

The first larger jet began to move towards the runway, the second smaller one immediately behind it. The jet Noventa was on managed to make it all the way to the runway without fail, and began to speed up down the runway. The four Gundams, all now in sight of the other, stopped their rampage for the moment and looked at the jet leave.

"This is just an unfortunate incident. I don't want to consider this an obstacle to the peace negotiations," said Noventa calmly as possible as he watched from one of the windows. In the cockpit, the communications officer picked up a frequency from one of the Gundams, as the evacuation jet was hit by a sensor scan from it. 

"…there it is…"

The communications officer's heart sank. "SIR!" 

"Huh?" asked Noventa, hearing the intercepted transmission. One of the Gundams, a red and blue one with variable geometry, shifted its structure into the shape of a large aircraft and took off towards them. It returned to its mobile suit form and pulled out a green beam saber.

"Now young man…" said Noventa slowly, staring at the gundanium mobile suit. "Don't do anything foolish…" 

"Mission…"

_Oh no…the negotiations…it's all over…_

The Gundam brought the beam saber down onto the shuttle, cutting through it quickly. It split apart, held it's shape for a moment, and exploded in a huge fireball.

"…accomplished."

About a hundred meters away, on the next runway, on Treize's personal shuttle, General Septem stared at the fireball in horror. "Oh my God…Marhsal Noventa!" he cried, unable to comprehend what he just saw. He ignored as the Gundams began to fight amongst each other. "My God…what are we going to do…the colonists have killed Marshal Noventa!" he said, still in shock.

Lady Une approached him. "Excuse me, sir, but would you like to make an address?"

Septem looked up. "An address?"

"This shuttle has a full communications-array…you can make an address on all Alliance Information channels, if you'd like."

Septem nodded weakly. "Of course…on the Marhsal's death…the people deserve to know." His face suddenly contorted. "And so do the colonists…"

Une nodded and set up a small camera on a tripod in front of Septem's seat, connected to the jet's communications system. Septem regained his serious, angry face and prepared himself.

"Go ahead, General."

"People of the United Earth Sphere Alliance…today, we have faced a great lost to terrorism. As you can see, the New Edwards base has been completely destroyed by Colony Terrorists. This is considered the Colonies' declaration of war on the Earth! Today, we were here to discuss a peaceful negotiation with the colonies. Field Marshal Noventa, the man who was so eager to uphold that noble cause, is no longer with us. He was among the victims, on board the shuttle, brutally killed by the heartless colony invaders! As a result, the Alliance no longer has any reason to reopen peace talks with the Colonies! I repeat, this is an act of war! We shall never surrender to the colonies! We will fight back, no matter what it takes!"

The small red light on the camera flashed, then Lady Une walked up to him. "Excellent performance, General." Her voice suddenly became very dry. "You're work here is done."

"What?" asked Septem. 

Beneath him, the a floor-panel dropped, and he flew out screaming, chair and all. Lady Une walked over to the open hatch, the plane rapidly depressurizing, and pulled the pistol out of his holster. "That was a wonderful performance. Too bad that you had such a small role in the final act." She aimed carefully and shot him as he fell to the ground. "However, You can't be allowed to shed any blood near Mr. Treize."

Above, on the primary deck, Treize sat quietly. "So, the second act has begun…we can't turn back."

***

Walker shifted the Aries around on its thin spindly legs, blasting apart the Leo behind him with the 120mm cannon. The Aries was normally clumsy on the ground due to its large upper body and ineffective legs, but if one used it enough, one could master such weaknesses.

"That's the last one!" he said as it exploded. He stood with three other black Aries, all members of his personal division, the 4th Airborne. The rest that had left the base with him were just pilots without leaders who were depending on him temporarily. 

"Nice shot, sir," came a voice from behind. Alexander Sampson. 

"Thank, Sampson," muttered Walker softly. In the two other Aries were Kanna and his third wingman, Dack Bishop. 

"Uh…sir?" came a voice over the channel.

"What is it, Kanna?" he asked.

"I think you want to see this…" she said carefully. On his forward viewscreen, a small image display box appeared, with a timer on the corner, receiving transmission. On it was Alliance General Septem, looking furious, though the transmission was plagued with static distortion. 

_Septem? Walker thought._

"It's the Alliance Information Channel, I think…" said Bishop from behind, scanning the horizon for any more enemy mobile suits. 

"…bzzzttt… can see, the New Edwards base has been completely destroyed by Colony Terrorists. This is considered the Colonies' declaration of war on the Earth! Today, we were here to discuss a peaceful negotiation with the…bzzztttt…Marshal Noventa, the man who was so eager to uphold that noble cause, is no longer with us. He was among the victims…..bzzztttt…brutally killed by the heartless colony invaders! As a result, the Alliance no longer has….bzzzztttt…Colonies! I repeat, this is an act of war! We shall never surrender to the colonies! We will fight back, no matter what it takes!"

Walker blinked, not believe what he was hearing. It all made sense now: the Alliance had been forced into declaring war with the Colonies…and now, OZ had replaced the Alliance in a coup d'etat. This was Treize Khushrenada's step to insure good relations with the colonies. 

"My God…the Alliance has declared war on the Space Colonies…" commented Dack out loud over the channel. 

The image flickered and was replaced by that of an angry looking Kanna Kirishima, from the camera placed in the direct front of the cockpit over the forward viewscreen. She was clad in a full black Officer uniform, and Walker saw her turn to her side angrily, probably speaking to Bishop. "What Alliance? There is no Alliance!" she yelled at him. 

Walker didn't have a video image of Bishop displayed, but he heard the other Officer give an indignant grunt. Distracted for a moment, he failed to notice the brown Leo with Alliance markings emerging from behind a blasted out building.

"Sir, to you're right!" screamed out Sampson. He raised his rifle and aimed it at the Leo, but was blocked by Kanna's Aries. She had deliberately moved in front of him. "Kirishima! Get out of my way!"

"Don't shoot, you fool!" she yelled at him. Immediately after she did, the Leo flashed a red signal from its primary camera eye, and she did the same with her own. Sampson lowered the rifle and looked at him.

"He's out contact, Black Knight," explained Walker.

The channel opened up. "Are you Black Rook?" asked a voice. 

Walker immediately responded. "Yes. I presume you are former-Officer Mazuri?"

The pilot answered. "Yes, I'm A. Mazuri." An image of him, a man in a barely lit Leo cockpit, displayed of him, on the forward viewscreen. He gave a brief salute and nodded. Next to him, another window image displayed, this one of Kirishima again.

"You had a contact, and you didn't tell us about it? We might of shot him!"

Walker nodded. "Sorry…I didn't think it was so important," he admitted.

Kanna mumbled something under her voice and the image of her vanished, as did Mazuri's. Walker took a deep breath and looked around. "So…that's it. Operation Daybreak is over. The Alliance is dead."

Suddenly, Kanna's attitude changed. "So let's go back to the central command station and celebrate!" she urged him over the channel. Walker ignored her and closed the private channel, just staring from inside the cockpit. He tuned the sound communications to a recording from earlier and listened to it carefully.

_"Everyone, stop all unnecessary resistance! We don't want victory, what we want is you, our new comrades! The Alliance's era is over! A real peace can only be accomplished by OZ! Let's work together to create a new world order...!"_

_ _

__Lieutenant Zechs Merquise.

_Zechs…Sir, we will meet again where the sun never shines...._


	5. The Reassignment

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 5_**

"It's been done," said Walker as he surveyed the horizon

"It's been done," agreed Gozart from above. 

"It's finally been done," said a tiny voice over Walker's pager.

Walker stood on the smoking concrete at the approximate center of what had been the Nairobi Airbase. Smoke belched endlessly into the air from blasted-out buildings, and numerous pieces of fighter craft, smaller then mobile suits but still deadly, covered the landscape. Directly behind and above Walker was his Aries, resting on its knees, with the cockpit module open. Next to it was Captain Gozart's own Aries, parked in a similar fashion. He descended from it hanging onto a gantry line, his foot in the triangular ring at the bottom of it, as the cable lowered from a reel and electric motor built right into the cockpit lid. All but the oldest Alliance Aries had that feature, and it was the only way to disembark from an Aries without breaking your legs. Above Walker, three Aries flew in formation, the high-pitched whine of their jet engineers breaking the silence. 

"We can't turn back," muttered Walker under his breath.

"We can't turn back," echoed Gozart as he walked up to his subordinate. 

"We can't go back," said the voice over pager. 

Over the burning landscape, the African sun rose again, apparently uncaring about the recent shift in power, just as it had for billions of years beforehand. It bleed bright orange and yellow, casting a light over the hulks of shattered mobile suits and destroyed buildings. It was undeniably a beautiful sight if you ignored all the death and destruction directly underneath it. 

"You know what?" asked Gozart, not waiting for an answer. "It's amazing that so much bad shit can happen on such a beautiful day."

Walker nodded. Like himself, Gozart was thinking from the point of the view of average Alliance soldier that had died, surrendered, or defected a few hours earlier. However, the way Walker was thinking wasn't quite the same. He was thinking about how incredibly easy it had been to carry out the coup d'etat. Mobile suits, it had dawned to him, were offensive weapons. Going back to the earliest, crude Leos, which were basically reduced versions of the Tallgeese Prototypes, mobile suits had been like that. He reasoned that it had been like that because of Alliance Strategists had reasoned that there was nothing that could fight against a mobile suit, and they were the only ones with the Tallgeese, hence the only ones with the technology capable of such construction of weapons.

He took a deep breath, the fumes from the burning metal stinging his lungs. The Alliance Strategists had been wrong, as they were now. Even as a lowly Lieutenant in the OZ, Walker had known that the mobile suit was not exclusive to the Alliance Military. The Interstellar Colonies had developed their own, the Gundams, and sent them to Earth. Even before that, as a lowly Officer for the 'Special Mobile Suit Corps', Walker had known of another armed force outside the Alliance that had developed mobile suits. They were called the Maganac Corps, and Walker had learned about their existence from his superiors when he was first stationed in the Middle East. They had their own specially designed mobile suits for as far back as After Colony 180 or perhaps earlier, probably originating from a captured or stolen Leo suit. 

"I suppose you're right," said Walker absently. He reached for his built and unhooked the pager, and spoke into it. "Officer Lyn, are you there?" he asked slowly.

A small voice soon came back. "Yes, I'm here."

"What's the situation with Operation Daybreak abroad?" he asked.

There was a delayed response this time. "The coup has been a success. Most Alliance bases, unlike Nairobi, surrendered without much of a fight after hearing of the massacre at New Edwards. Nonetheless, only small portions of Alliance soldiers have joined our cause. We've got thousands of new comrades, but millions of new prisoners of war."

Walker nodded, and Gozart added. "Not exactly thrilled with the changes, I suppose."

"Lyn, one last thing." 

"Yes?"

Walker bit down on his lip. "Has it been confirmed that Field Marshal Noventa is dead?" 

There was a longer pause this time, and Walker spoke. "Lyn, has it been confirmed that…"

"Yes, it has," came Lyn's tinny voice. "Marshal Noventa is dead." 

Walker nodded again. "Thanks, Lyn," he said promptly, and switched off the pager. Again, he continued staring straight into the horizon. The sun was about a quarter of the way up now. 

"Well, I suppose we'd better get going," said Gozart, out of nowhere. 

"Go where?" he asked.

"We managed to capture the command center undamaged, for the most part. It's still standing, anyway. A big celebration for all OZ soldiers and Alliance soldiers that defected and assisted us earlier is going to be held." Gozart looked at him through his sunglasses. "You should be there. If only to congratulate you're troops."

After thinking about it, Walker nodded in agreement. "I'll be there."

"Good," said Gozart approvingly, as he reached into one of the small pockets in his uniform. He pulled out a small package of cigarettes and helped himself to one, then offered one to Walker, who declined. "Don't smoke?" he asked, smirking.

"No, I don't," shot Walker back. 

"What? You afraid that, since the Gundams didn't kill you, lung cancer might?"

Walker turned his chin upwards. "I won't dignify that with a response, Captain Gozart." 

Gozart laughed heartily, masking the dread he was undeniable feeling after what he had done. "You're sharp, you know that Walker? Very sharp."

_I'm not going to even ask what he means by that, _thought Walker, as he watched Gozart ascend up the gantry cable to his own Aries. 

***

In the low-ceilinged recreation chambered, fifty meters under the concrete surface, the celebration reached a fever-pitched. The room was already very full and deafeningly noisy. On one of the walls was a grille the aroma of military rations being warmed up came pouring forth, with a distinct organic smell, which did not quite overcome the fumes of what had been affectionately dubbed by OZ regulars as 'Victory Alcohol'. On the far side of the room was a long counter, with people pressed against it laughing and trying to talk, where the taps ran freely. 

"So this is what I missed when I was an engineer," said Walker aloud to himself, since he could no longer hear himself think. "While I was working and trying to prepare mobile suits for combat, soldiers were busy getting hammered."

"And here's our man of the hour!" said a voice at Walker's back.

He turned around, and was not entirely surprised at what he saw. Officers Kirishima, Bishop, and what he expected to be 'Black Knight' Mazuri took three of the much-valued seats at the counter, four if you included the one Kirishima had her leg over. Perhaps 'officer' was not exactly the right word right now. Currently, they could be branded 'drunkards' easily. He found himself walking up to them, and gave them a firm salute, which none of them returned, as he was expecting.

"We were wonderin' if you were gonna show up!" cried Kanna cheerfully, a red blush across her tanned face, a side effect of the alcohol. She was still dressed in her black Officers uniform, similar to the one Walker had worn before his unfortunate demise, though the collar was opened and it was poorly buttoned. And she still had the bandanna around her head, though Walker remembered her looking much neater back in battle, from what he had seen on the viewscreen. Nonetheless, even now, he recognized it was difficult to tell that Kanna was in fact a woman, thanks to her tremendous height and huge, muscular arms. She was larger then himself, Bishop, or Mazuri.

"Yea, we had sort of a wager on it," admitted Bishop, chuckling madly. 

"Looks like _you _lost, Dack!" she said, laughing. "Now pay up." 

Walker put his head over Kanna's shoulder and looked Dack straight in the eyes. "I'd listen to her if I were you. She could twist your spine like a pretzel easily," he warned him.

Dack seemed to get the idea and reached into his pocket, then dropped some coins onto the counter. Kanna laughed triumphantly and slammed her hand against it. "Bartender! Another round over here!"

Walker shook his head slightly, then turned his attention to Dack. He was also dressed in uniform, but was a bit neater then Kanna, with his collar still buttoned. He was a younger man, much smaller then Kanna and about his own height. He had blondish hair and odd green-blue eyes, and like Walker, was unremarkable-looking, for the most part.

Mazuri stood up and tried to shift past Kanna, extending his hand towards Walker. "I assume you're Black Rook?" he asked. 

Walker nodded, shaking the other's hand. "Christopher Walker."

"A. Mazuri, formerly of the UESA." He pulled his hand back. Walker was somewhat relieved to see that Mazuri, unlike Kanna or Dack, had a very sensible permanence. He had neatly combed black hair and dark skin, a genetic trait common to the area, suggesting he might have been born here, and a neat pair of small glasses resting on his nose. Walker was also tempted to ask what the 'A' stood for, but refrained from doing it. He leaned back against the counter and observed Mazuri. It occurred to him that the reason he had stuck out so much was the fact he was dressed in a brown Alliance uniform, but with a black kerchief tied around the sleeve. 

"So, Mazuri…'Black Knight'…kind of a corny nickname, wouldn't you agree?" he asked calmly.

Mazuri nodded. "I can't argue with you there. My original group was the fifty-second Leo MS Team, called the 'Knights', and the name sort of clung on even after I defected."

Suddenly, Bishop entered the conversation, his speech slightly slurred. "Ha! That's nothing…mine was 'Black Bishop'…I mean, how stupid is _that_?" 

Walker and Mazuri looked at him skeptically and he slowly backed away towards Kanna, then rested his head against the counter. The Lieutenant opened his mouth to say something, when Kanna suddenly turned around, swinging around a large bottle of champagne she was holding by the neck of the bottle, nearly hitting him in the head. He ducked and grabbed her arm, trying to stop it. 

"Officer Kirishima, are you sure you're feeling all right?" he asked, slightly annoyed. Once again, the familiarity of the name Kirishima reentered his mind. He frowned mentally. _Kirishima, Kirishima, Kirishima…where is that from…_

She gave a strange alto-pitched laugh and nodded. "Yea, I'm fine sir…this is my eighth bottle though…" She giggled a bit, a truly unnerving sound. Then, suddenly, it hit Walker.

_Of course! The Kirishima Family! _He remembered reading a newspaper article at Corsica, as an engineer, about one of the Japanese noble families called Kirishima. Apparently, they were distantly related to the Imperial Family. _So that must mean that Kanna is a noblewoman…_

He looked at Kanna, her brown face with a red blush to it, laughing drunkenly. It was somewhat difficult to believe, so he decided to ask her. "Kanna?" he asked.

"Yes?"

_I suppose I might as well do this subtly_. "Are you related to the Kirishima Family of Japan?" he asked loudly, to be heard over the ruckus in the area.

She blinked, seemed to think about it for a moment, and nodded. "Yes, I am. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

"Yes, well…" she began, before hiccupping briefly, and resumed. "…I'm the…twenty-seventh heir…" She grinned, hiccupping again. "I mean, me and my two younger brothers are anyway…" 

Walker nodded. He had been created alone, and had no siblings. "I see…well, thanks for clearing that up," he called out loudly. It occurred to him his original reason for coming here. "Well, people, I'd just like to congratulate you all on a job well done and…"

"Walker! Walker!" cried another familiar voice from behind him. He recognized it immediately and pretended not to hear. 

"Walker!" yelled the voice, louder this time. Captain Gozart came up to him, still wearing his sunglasses and uniform, followed by what was probably his aide or secretary. She reminded Walker faintly of Lyn, but was shorter and had hazel-colored hair, and a very annoying appearance, though not as irritating as Gozart's own, and she was dressed in a simple black suit and skirt with a the OZ insignia on her shoulder.

Gozart sat down at the empty stool Kanna had been saving with her leg, his gruff smirk beaming into his face. Walker had a brief hallucination and driving a pickaxe or a beam saber into it, then shook it off. "Captain," he acknowledged him, with sort of a guilty haste.

"Glad to see you decided to come!" said Gozart, managing to be both gruff and friendly. "And call me 'Blue',"

"Whatever you say, Captain Gozart."

Gozart looked over Walker's shoulder and observed the others. "Well! Looks like you kids managed to survive!" He laughed again and struck Walker on the back, nearly knocking him off his feet. "Looks like you're stuck with them till you manage to kill 'em off!" he joked.

Walker laughed falsely "Right…kill them off…" and then quickly turned to his subordinates and hissed, "Don't forget that." 

"Hey, chill out, Walker!" said Gozart abruptly. "Relax! Have a beer, my treat!" 

Walker could feel the capillaries at the bottom of his skull tightening. "No thanks, sir."

Gozart gave him a foreboding eye. "You know, there's something wrong with a man who doesn't drink beer or smoke…"

"Like Mr. Treize?" countered Walker quickly, not looking up. 

"Yes, exactly…no, wait, I meant…" said Gozart quickly, stumbling for the first time to Walker's knowledge. He quickly recovered. "Well, fine, be all serious, Walker." He looked at the others. "Man, do I feel sorry for you kids!" he said gruffly.

Mazuri and Bishop nodded, as Kanna chugged down another bottle. Gozart shrugged and his aide whispered something in his ear that Walker couldn't pick up. He nodded and stood up. "Well, if you kids will excuse me, I have some business to attend to, but Ms. Carter has something to give to you, I believe."

He nodded at them and walked away, much to Walker's relief. Ms. Carter, Gozart's aide, walked up to Walker and produced a small envelope. The former Engineer took a deep breath and gathered his composure, then cut open the envelope with a small knife and read the contents. The mission statement. 

"We're being reassigned…" he said slowly.

Kanna spoke up first. "Where?"

"To Moscow…then Siberia…" he admitted.

"Moscow? It's cold over there!" complained Kanna, shivering at the thought. 

_A big girl like you shouldn't have to worry about that…_thought Walker. "Yes, I realize that."

"Nice work, Lieutenant," smirked Mazuri. "Obviously, Gozart doesn't like you, sending you to the Russian Wastelands. At least I know I've been assigned to a first-rate…"

"What? Prick?" finished Walker for him harshly. He shook his head and stood up straight, catching the attention of his subordinates. 

"Uh, sir?" asked Dack.

"I'm going…you three enjoy yourselves, though." He turned around and began to walk away.

Kanna blinked and watched him leave the room. "I wonder where he's going?"

Mazuri shrugged. "Probably that rare place where a guy like him can be relax, if it exists."

***

"Careful with that armor plate! Don't drop it!" screamed a voice.

"The hundred twenty millimeter on Aries is ready! I need eight more cartridges, though!" 

Walker's black mobile suit rested on its rack in the hangar. He walked around at the base, where its extended feet touched the ground, and stared up at it. He felt more relaxed now, breathing normally despite the fumes and such. Several hard-working engineers moved around, inspecting the damage and replacing components that had been harmed during _Operation Daybreak_. He looked up at them working, some of the mechanics trying to repair the large two-meter long scorch on the port jet turbine of the Aries, others on a gantry high above him. One of the mechanics observed him out of the corner of his eye.

"Lieutenant!" cried the mechanic, before giving him a salute. Walker looked up at him and returned the salute. 

_They never take a break. It's exactly like I remember_. "How are the repairs going?"

"You're Aries will be ready by fifteen hundred hours, sir!" the mechanic cried out urgently. "You have the maintenance department's word on it!" 

Walker nodded assuring. "I'm in no rush." He put his hands back into his pockets and began to walk off. Around him, engineers and mechanics scattered about nervously, unnerved at all that had changed in the past few days. Walker had been like that, not long ago.

He didn't really feel bad for leaving the party so early. Kanna and Dack and the others were still young and deserved to have fun. And it didn't help that he constantly felt out of place and had a severe migraine. Finally, he relaxed his shoulders, and tried to walk more casually and normally through the hangar, when something caught his attention.

About two meters ahead of him was a large, rectangular object about two or so meters tall, polished to a high shine, which must have been the missile pod for an Aries, though he wasn't concerned with which one. In the reflection of the side of the missile pod, he could see himself, and several gray-clad mechanics. And amongst those mechanics, he could make out two indistinct figures dressed in black uniforms, like his. 

He groaned, realizing it was probably Gozart and one of his assistants following him to pester him some more. Looking around, he saw an exit to the hangar in a metal door. It would take him about four seconds, if he broke out into a run, but that would guarantee he would be noticed. Before he could decide, he heard a voice behind him call out, "Walker! Walker, is that really you? I can't believe it!"

He stopped when he realized it was the voice of a woman, not of Gozart's or any of his lackeys, and someone he knew. Walker rigidly turned around to see two very familiar people.

"Walker! So Otto wasn't lying! You survived!" called out Lucrezia Noin as she jogged over to him. Behind her was Joseph Otto. 

_Run, man, run! _Walker stopped and his footsteps and slowly turned around, and pretended to be surprised. "Noin…Otto…" he said slowly, regarding them with a slight nod of his head. Right now, he wanted to crawl into the missile pod and instruct one of the mechanics to fire it.

"See? I wasn't lying," said Otto with a note of triumph in his voice. 

Noin walked over to Walker and put a hand on his shoulder in a friendly manner. "I guess you were, Otto. I guess you were." She turned to Walker. "Still, it was pretty hard to believe! I mean, all of us thought you died at Corsica!"

Walker blinked. "Who is 'us'?" he asked, not even bothering to form a greeting. 

"Oh, you know…Me, Otto, Zechs…all the other Lake Victoria honors graduates!"

Walker felt his stomach sink lower and his headache worsen, and he forced himself to turn away from the two. "I see. Where's Lieutenant Zechs, anyway?"

"Didn't you hear? Zechs left for the Sanc Kingdom right after the victory here at Nairobi."

Walker nodded, still not facing Noin and Otto. _I see…so the rumors are true…_Then something else occurred to him. _Since I was declared dead, that means Tallgeese must still be at Corsica_. He quickly spun around and looked at Otto. "Otto, I need you to do a favor for me, seeing how you were at Corsica and you're still alive."

Otto blinked. "Like what?"

"Bring Tallgeese to Lieutenant Zechs."

"Wha…why?" he asked, startled. "That thing's your responsibility though! Why don't you just bring it?"

Walker stared at Otto straight in the eye. "Otto…"

"All right, all right, I'll do it. I was meaning to join Zechs at the Sanc Kingdom anyway, eventually. Now I have an excuse." He shrugged, still unhappy with the decision. 

"Thanks, Otto, I owe you one." He took out his small pocketbook and tore out a sheet of paper, and began scribbling some numbers. "Everything you'll need should still be in the hangar, I'll give you the access code. I'd do it myself, but I'm being reassigned, to answer your question." Well, it was half the truth.

"Reassigned where?" asked Otto.

"Moscow, then Siberia."

"Siberia?" echoed Otto sadly. "Walker, I don't think you appreciate the full extent of _why_ you're being to Siberia."

"What do you mean?"

"You're being sent to Outer Space," said Otto promptly. Not waiting for Walker's reaction, he continued. "Don't bother reading your mission statement, Christopher. I know for a fact they're going to send your group to the colonies, eventually. Why else would they give you Taurus Suits?" he asked.

Taurus Suits? It suddenly occurred to Walker. Ever since Lake Victoria had sustained the terrorist attack, the deployment of OZ's new elite Space Corps had been transferred directly to the plant in Siberia where the new OZ-12SMS 'Taurus' were manufactured. 

It was a simple matter of putting two and two together. They were being sent into outer space. 

Noin stepped forward, her face serious now. "Walker."

"Yes?" he asked, looking up from the piece of paper, his very short train of thought coming to a halt. 

"Why are you avoiding Zechs?" she demanded, catching him off guard. "Come to think of it, you've been avoiding all of us, but why would you avoid Zechs? You two were like war buddies!" She put her hands on her waist. "You've had lots of chances to meet with him so far, what happened?"

Walker finished writing the numbers and handed the sheet of paper to Otto, who pocketed it. "You wouldn't understand, Noin. Things change after you die."

She frowned angrily at him. "That's ridiculous! You're not even dead!"

"Yes I am," he retorted. "And if you'll excuse me, superior officers, I must go." He saluted and spun on his heel, then walked off as quickly as possible.

Noin and Otto just stared at him as he left. "I…I can't believe that's Walker. I mean, it _looked _like Walker, and it _sounded _like Walker…but…"

Otto sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I guess he's right. A lot of things must change after you die. And Walker looked up to Zechs more then the rest of us."

Noin nodded gently. "I guess so." 

***

Walker's temporary quarters at Nairobi were typical of a Lieutenant. It was a small cubical room, about three meters long, wide, and slightly shorter. On one wall, to the right of the entrance, was an alcove about half a meter deep, with a mattress in it, which served an obvious purpose. Against the opposite wall was a metal desk with a lamp on it. Other then that, the room was almost entirely unfurnished, and had no window, being so far beneath ground. 

He had tried to sleep, if only to reset his internal clock, but it had been no use. His thoughts about Noin and Otto, about Zechs, even about the pilots under his command now, filled his mind. He eventually found himself sitting on a metal chair at the metal desk. 

Adjusting the light to better suit him, he reached under his cape over his left shoulder and pulled out a small pocketbook and a pen. He clicked the end of the pen once to extend the tip, and opened the book. He found it somewhat difficult to express what he was thinking, even in writing, which he had done a great deal of as an engineer, but continued. He slowly pressed the tip of the pen against the patch and neatly printed out words.

_April 12th, A.C. 195_, he wrote. _From the age of the Mobile Suit._

He lifted his pen and stared at the writing, thinking about it. He was fairly sure it was April 12th, and he knew it was After Colony 195. But the fact that he had referred to it as 'the age of the mobile suit' was somewhat disheartening. What was even more disheartening was the fact he was uncomfortable about it, being a soldier, a member of OZ, and an engineer who had spent his entire adult life and most of his childhood around the things. He continued.

_If there is hope_, he wrote, _for a unified Humanity, it lies in the Colonists._

That was true, he decided. The colonists were the only people, the only ethnic group that had not been corrupted by the Alliance. People on Earth had, at some point or another, realized what a mistake it was to try to unite humanity against their will. It was a stupid, pointless event that took countless lives and never lasted. The Alliance itself had barely managed to accomplish that goal for longer the thirty years, if you included the Interstellar Colonies. There would never be, he decided, an 'Earth Sphere'. It would never exist but in mind. 

_It isn't that the typical Colonist has better judgment then the typical Earthling. It's the fact that Earth Humans have known war since the beginning of time. The average adult colonist, on the other hand, has no idea what war is like. All they know can be summed up in the few brief seconds before their shuttle is destroyed by a shot from a beam cannon or a stream of 105mm shells cuts through them. _

He blinked, and realized the light was simply not strong enough, even though it was reflecting against the metal surface of the desk. He hunched over a bit more, and brought the lamp closer to him. 

_This, however, is not a major loss. Humanity was never intended to be completely united. People are different, that is the fact of the matter. And even if they rise above stupid things like prejudice and racial indifference, they will never allow themselves to be ruled under 'unification'. Earth Humans care a great deal about being different from their neighbors. The entire concept of 'Earth Sphere' is total rubbish. And it will always be rubbish, whether it was Before Colony* 54, After Colony 195, or After Colony 1950._

At this point, the pen was starting to run dry, and he liked the tip, then resumed. 

_The Colony Humans are different, however. The Colonists are not conscious about difference. And until they make their own attempt to unify humanity, they will never become conscious. And then after that, they will be no better then us Earthlings. Then maybe we will be equal, but it will be to late._

He smiled when he realized what he was writing was simply a loop. He almost laughed, but realized he was alone, and continued, but on a different subject.

_My name is Christopher Berker Walker. I was born some time in After Colony 176, in Liverpool._

He frowned and overstrike the word _born_ and replaced it with _created_. It was more suitable in his circumstances. 

_I am a_, he starting writing again, then paused.

What was he? 

_I am a Soldier of OZ. Of the Organization of the Zodiac. I fight because I believe that anyone attempting to unify humanity is just a fool and that_, he wrote, then stopped. He took the pen, and overstrike the sentence, beginning from _I fight_. 

"I don't know why I fight," he said out loud. He turned off the light, put the pen and book away, and climbed into the small alcove, shutting his eyes tightly. Every time he closed them, all he saw was the metallic face of Gundam Zero-Four. 

_My name is Christopher _Berker, he thought. _I was created some time in After Colony 176, and died in March of After Colony 195._ _I am neither an Earth nor a Colony Human. I am not human. _

_ _

__Author's Notes: 

Hey! Sorry about how this chapter went…I lost the original copy of it when the disket was stolen, had to rush it up over the weekend God, Friday's suck…but the weekends are great. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I'll be sure to be more careful from now on.

Officer Lyn is the brown-haired woman aboard the Space Fortress _Barge_ on episode 40, when the White Fang attacked. 

*_Before Colony_ is a term that I have created, to express the time before construction on the Space Colonies began in the Gundam Wing universe, such as _BC 90_ might have around our time, if which, _BC 135 _would have been about when the first object, _Sputnik I_, was launched into space. 


	6. The Circumstances

Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story Chapter 6 

The timer positioned right above Walker's head went off with a high-pitched ringing. His eyes darted around madly, searching for something, anything, in the pitch darkness. 

_Calm down, Walker…_he said, his voice that of a harmless engineer in his head. _You know where you are._

That was true, he _did _know where he was, despite the fact he could see anything. He tried to stretch out his arms and felt two rough, hard objects. The flightsticks. He took a sigh of relief, his exhalation condensing in the cold, dark air. 

Aries…

The relatively new mobile suit was as much home as was his office in Corisca, and he knew no home more then that. He had only been to Liverpool twice since he was created, both on missions for the Specials. 

His eyes still not completely adjusted to the darkness, he reached forward and pressed his index finger against a flat surface that he thought was a monitor screen. The touch-sensitive screen immediately lit up, displaying a picture of the massive Northern Eurasia landmass. On the map, a little point was highlighted in red with the word MOSCOW in bright red print. Underneath it was a timer going downwards by the seconds, minutes, and hours.

Walker adjusted his headset and tapped it, to make sure it was on. "Lyn! Lyn, you still there?"

"Walker! Rise and shine!" came the voice over the headset. "We had a wager on when you would wake up. Looks like I lost." There was a feminine giggle and Walker let out an indignant grunt. 

"How long have I been asleep, Lyn?" he asked. 

"Ever since we left Nairobi so, for about seven hours."

That was right enough, reflected Walker. He had left the Nairobi Airbase with his MS team in the early evening, and had been sleeping since then. Now it was early morning, evidently, and the wind was howling loudly outside. "Right. ETA till arrival, about an hour."

"Have fun, Walker," she joked over the channel, before Walker shut it off. There were three other Aries on his radar…he wondered if their pilots were asleep like he was. 

"Well, there's always one way to find out." He pressed the key on the control surface and switched to a private channel with the Aries to his left, Kirishima's. Being the Lieutenant, his Aries was a command-variant of the common model, and came with a few useful features, including a stronger sensor system, and a special video-communication suite. He pressed a key, and an image of Kanna in her cockpit, courtesy of the camera placed above the forward viewscreen, appeared, with out without her approval. 

He held back a laugh, stifling. She was resting against the seat, using her hands as a pillow, snoring softly. She mummer something, and shifted her shoulder. _Well, at least the cold's not getting to her_. Eventually, he realized how immoral it was just watching her, and despite the entertainment value, Walker decided to wake her up.

"Officer Kirishima," he said aloud over the channel.

Kanna shifted a bit, muttered something, then went back to sleep. Walker blinked, then decided he would try again.

"Kanna? Wake up," he instructed her.

This time, she muttered something in what Walker imagined was Japanese, but wasn't completely sure, and then said "Not now, Maji. I'm tired."

This left Walker slightly stunned for a moment, and peaked his curiosity. _Maji? Who the heck  is Maji?_ Despite himself, Walker found the gears of his mind starting to turn, making possibilities. Perhaps Maji was one of her younger brothers? He shook his head. No…the way Kanna had said it wasn't in exactly a sibling matter, and in all honest, Kanna did not seem to be the kind of person to engage in incest. Perhaps Maji was a lover, or perhaps her fiancé, if she had one. 

Then something occurred to him. Wasn't Maji a girl's name? 

Walker blinked again, idly surprised for the first time in several years. 

Was Kanna Kirishima, Officer Cadet and Noblewoman, a lesbian?

Brief hallucinations flashed in his mind, similar to the ones of smashing a pickaxe into Gozart's face, but more alluring, of Kanna. Walker found himself feeling very awkward, a feel a single red drop of blood emit from his left nostril. Immediately, his hands still tightly wrapped around the two flicksticks, he pulled his head back, inhaled strongly through his nose to suck the blood back up, and then, pulling against the restraint harnesses, brought his head down on one of the hard surfaces of the cockpit system.

Swearing loudly, he let go of the flightsticks and felt his forehead. His nose was no longer bleeding, but there was a ripe cut about two centimeters wide on his forehead. A small, but increasing, amount of blood was smeared on the control surface, over the gauges. The video-image of Kanna disappeared off the screen.  

Walker ignored it. He couldn't believe how stupid that had been, thinking like that! Walker didn't consider himself prejudice on matters such as that, but the fact of the matter was that it was none of his business! He didn't even know that the name 'Maji' was Japanese, much less the name of a girl!

He sighed, then took out a cloth kerchief and pressed it against the small wound on his forehead. At least he wasn't hallucinating anymore…the vivid images had possibly been knocked out of his head when he nearly gave himself a concussion. Eventually, his nose seemed to return from its strange mental reflex, and he his breathing regulated itself. He scrubbed any traces of the thought from his mind mentally, removed the lightly-stained kerchief and turned his attention to the next task: preparing his pilots for landing. 

He opened up the primary channel. "Attention, all pilots of the 4th Airborne Mobile Suit Team! WAKE UP!" he ordered sternly. 

One by one, video screens for each of the pilots, including Kanna's, appeared on the side viewscreen. Walker received a first-hand view of how each of them woke up after he yelled at them, something he considered useful for the future. 

Mazuri was the first to speak. "Morning, LT." Then he yawned and began stretching as much as he could in the cockpit. 

Dack muttered "Uh, what a cramp…last time I want to sleep in my mobile suit."

Kanna yawned loudly as well, then acknowledged Walker with a sleepy nod of her head. When he activated his own camera, she noticed the mark on his head. "Uh…sir? Are you all right?" she asked.

"Fine, don't worry about it," he lied. He had become very good at lying in a short period of time, it seemed. Perhaps it was a trait necessary to become a good leader. He had once heard that, if you wanted to become a great leader, you needed two things: _tactical genius_ and _character_, but if you had to do without one, you should forget about _tactical genius_. He imagine that fraud fell under the later thing, he imagined.

"Sir, what's our ETA?" 

"Fifty-four minutes." Walker yawned once himself and stretched his arms, then began running checks on the cockpit systems. The four of them flew there, at an altitude of approximately three kilometers above the ground. Walker was aware of the exact range of Aries, since it could only operate in the Earth's atmosphere due to its jet turbines, that it was, if he wasn't mistaken, 13 kilometers above ground. Above that, the atmosphere became too thin for the jet turbines to 'grab on' and ignite. 

It appeared as though Mazuri was opening his mouth to say something, but his voice was blocked out by a sudden, high-pitched electronic whine. At first, Walker wasn't totally sure of what it was, but then the terrifying truth dawned on him.

A Missile-Lock Alarm.

"Everyone, missile lock, EVADE!" he yelled. Mazuri and Bishop quickly broke off, possibly out of range of the missile, though Kirishima, who was still waking up, just hung there about twenty meters away from Walker. Panicked, he saw her blink and look in the direction where the alarm was doubtlessly coming from in her own cockpit. She was also within range. 

"KIRISHIMA! MOVE!" he screamed. He accelerated rapidly, broke to the right, and positioned the Aries' left hand so that it made contact with the other Aries, and pushed her out of the way. Less then a second after their two Aries met in mid-flight, the white exhaust streak of a missile darted pass them, in a near vertical line from the ground, going through the place Kirishima's Aries had been half a second before. 

Walker didn't waste time. He used his remaining hand to aim at the ground where he estimated the missile had fired. Hitting something over three thousand meters away with a 120mm rifle was highly unlikely, and he hadn't even waited for the targeting computer to get a lock. Several shots rattled out of the rifle, descending to the ground, and disappeared from view. 

"All units return fire!" he screamed, as Mazuri and Bishop brandished their own weapons and began firing at the same area. Mazuri wielded a 120mm identical to Walker's, though Bishop used one of the Aries' missile pods and fired several slower, but more powerful, warheads towards the location. 

Walker turned the head of his Aries towards Kirishima's, in order to get a better view of the exterior of her suit. It didn't seem to be damaged. "Kirishima, are you all right?" he asked. Her video-image had disappeared, and now came back. Her head was hung down, and she seemed to be pulling against the restraint harnesses. She took long, deep breaths, perhaps to calm her nerves. 

"Kirishima!" he repeated again, and stopped firing his rifle. 

"Yes, I'm all right. I'm sorry about that, sir," she admitted humbly. 

"Don't worry about it," he said, turning away from the video-image on the port viewscreen. "You sure you'll be okay?"

"I'll be fine, sir."

"All units, cease fire!" he announced. _If we haven't hit it by now, it's probably too far away…_he thought as he moved his Aries out of position.

Beneath him, as the clouds seem to part, an explosive fireball, small and minute to them, expanded and then burnt itself out. _Or maybe not…_

"Mazuri, contact Nairobi Airbase…ask them what the hell just happened," he ordered him. 

"Yes sir!"

"The rest of us, increase altitude to eight kilometers, then level out." The Alliance didn't have any surface-to-air missiles with that long a range…did it?

***

"Captain Gozart!" shouted Officer Lyn. 

Gozart quickly walked through the hallways of the communications station at Nairobi. "What's our situation? What's this about the 4th Airborne Team?" he asked. 

"Apparently, they came under attack by a SAM missile," she said, pronouncing the each of the three letters individually rather then together. Lyn sat at her station in front of a communications console. An image of the Russian Airspace where the 4th Airborne had been at the time occupied the primary monitor. 

"Must have been Alliance partisans hanging out…Russia's a big place with not that many people. Have there been reports on Alliance Guerilla activity?"

"Several, sir," she said, the records coming up on a scrolling list on a window over the map.

Gozart nodded. "Have they taken any damage?' he asked, leaning over the Lyn's chair, peering at the screen. 

"None reported so far."

"I thought so…Walker's a tough chap, despite his appearance." He stood up straight. "It'll be a good way to carve out the Alliance activity in the region. Keep monitoring with satellite. See if you can find whatever was shooting at them."

"Yes sir," she said politely. _He's going to use Walker as a decoy…?_

***

The rest of the trip had been fairly unremarkable. Kanna's mood improved slowly, though she still seamed affected by that close encounter with death. Walker's overall mood was mostly indifferent and composed, but he retained his thoughtful air. Inside his cockpit, he flipped a series of overhead switches that controlled which communications and sensor arrays he was using.

"We'll be entering Moscow airspace in about ten minutes," he announced over is headset, as he flipped the last of the series of switches. "Switch over to standard military communication frequencies." He checked the forward viewscreen. "We should be able to see the city by now."

"Uh, sir?" asked Mazuri, over the standard frequency. 

"Yes?"

"I'm not going to be an expert on Russia, but aren't the Muscovites supposedly very Pro-OZ?" he asked, as he finished flipping the same switches. 

"From what I heard, that would be true." 

The memory of a report that, during _Operation Daybreak_, a small group of Specials Officers had been rounded up and executed in St. Basil's Cathedral. One of them was a Muscovite civilian training to become a Specials Officer. As a result, a combination of fury at the oppressive alliance, the murder of a civilian, and the desecration for what was considered an important and holy structure, a mob of angry Muscovites marched into the Red Square, broke through the barricades and defenses, and drove straight into the government offices, imprisoning the now ineffective Alliance Governor and Garrison in the Kremlin. The now organized mob's plan was to starve the Alliance Officers into submission, though OZ soldiers, originally sent to recover the bodies of their dead comrades, organized a surrender on the part of the Alliance, promising that they would attempt to keep the angry mob outside Russia's 'White House' from killing them as soon as they left. The same day, all other Alliance troops in the Russia Area surrendered, and OZ established a few small government offices in Moscow, as well as taking control of the Alliance's manufacturing plant at Siberia. Russia, and its neighbors, were freed of Alliance rule and formed a Pro-OZ bloc on the basis of mutual defense. They were nicknamed the Moscow Pact nations. 

At first, the story was so farfetched that, upon first hearing it, Walker thought it was just OZ Propaganda. However, civilian-operated news channels such as the British Broadcasting Company had been reporting the whole event as it transpired. A _BBC Live Report_ he saw after the end of _Operation Meteor_, convinced Walker that the events must have transpired while he was fighting. 

"Let's hope they are," said Walker. "We need as many allies as we can, particularly now."

"Plus, we're staying with them for a while," pointed out Kanna sensibly, who seemed to get her voice back.

"Good point." Then, much to his annoyance, another alarm went off in his cockpit. He nearly leapt out of his skin, when he realized it wasn't a missile lock alarm. He swore under his breath and pressed a finger against the screen, shutting off the alarm, then reopened the channel. "We're now in Moscow Airspace."

"Really? I can't see anything…" commented Bishop, looking around. 

"That's because we're eight clicks up," smirked Mazuri. 

"He's right. Reassume formation, and descend until we receive guidance from air control. Fly smart and remember, just because we can't see the Muscovites,  it doesn't mean they can't see us."

***

"Sir! We've detected four mobile suits on radar!" said one of the operators in the Kremlin.

The Communications Director shrugged. "That's not unusual. There's been a lot of activity since the Revolution ended."

"I know sir, but these four are heading directly for the city center. They've also started hailing us…should we respond?"

"Are they using normal frequencies?" he asked. 

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Go ahead an open a video channel."

The communications officer reached forward and pressed one of a row of five switches. On the main monitor, Walker's videoimage appeared. He managed to get out a smile, and saluted. "Hello, Moscow Authorities. This is the OZ 4th Airborne Team from the Nairobi Division. I am Lieutenant Christopher Walker."

The Director smiled, then leaned forward. "We've been expecting you, Lieutenant," reverting from Russian to English. He had a slight accent, but spoke very well otherwise. "Lady Une sent word that your team would join us here, then go to Siberia."

Walker seemed to pause for a split-second, then nodded sincerely. "That's correct, sir. If you don't mind me asking, sir, where can my team land? We've been flying for the past eight hours or so and are anxious to land."

The Director chuckled softly, nodding. "Of course. I understand." He turned his attention to the Communications Officer and spoke to her in Russian, "Give them the coordinates for the nearest landing strip…"

"At the International Airport?"

"Nyet, right here in the Red Square."

She nodded and turned back to the console. "Da, sir."

***

_Looks like Colonel Une's gotten me all figured out_, thought Walker distastefully. The video channel was still open, so he hid his feelings under his typical 'happy-engineer' expression. 

"Lieutenant Valker!" said the Communications Officer from the Kremlin. She was a young woman with brown hair and narrow eyes, similar to Walker's, with intelligence behind them. 

Walker noticed that she didn't speak as good English as her Director. _Then again, my Russian's pretty bad…_

"Thank you for being so patient!" she said quickly. "Your team has permission to land at the Red Square, at Landing Strip Twvienty four," she informed him, then returned his salute and closed the channel. 

Even after her image disappeared, Walker found himself nodding slightly, then opened the channel to his own pilots. "All right, people, we've got the green. We're going to land at a strip at the Red Square."

Dack's image suddenly appeared on Walker's starboard viewscreen. "A strip?" he asked happily. "All right!"

Walker sighed. "No, a _landing _strip, you moron. And try not to hit anything on your way down!" he barked sharply before closing the channel. There was a heavy fog over Moscow, obscuring all but the largest structures, but the radar system allowed Walker to avoid any of the large buildings. As certain points, however, the fog was lighter then others, and as Walker passed one, a huge brown building with large union-shaped dome towers seemed to appear out of no where. 

St. Basil's Cathedral. Formerly a placed of worship, now a command center and research testing area for the Moscow Pact Nations.

The massive dome-capped structure was startling different from anything else visible at the moment. Walker found himself admiring its sober beauty, it's intimidating design, its aged appearance. From what he had heard, the building had been built at some time around Before Colony 400 or even older. It was impossible to tell, as not even the former Alliance had known precisely when or even why the building had been built (though one suspected it was dedicated to a Religious Saint named Basil). 

Walker quickly banked right, a few seconds after his other pilots did, to avoid colliding into the massive structure in a fireball. Near the Cathedral was a large Clock Tower. Walker passed at the precise moment to hear it strike sixteen hundred hours, or 4:00 PM as the locals referred to it. The loud chimes made itself heard to Walker despite the shielding and such around the Aries centerpiece.

"Grr…" he muttered, covering his ears and headset until the chimes ended. They eventually came to a landing, on a very short runway outside one of the many onion-dome topped buildings. The four Aries came down one by one, extending their legs for the landings, and gantries were moved in front of each of them. Walker climbed out of the cockpit and unconsciously stretched his legs. He looked around, then looked downwards to see several officers dressed in gray and black uniforms. 

"Well, here's the welcoming committee," commented Mazuri out loud, to his right. Walker turned and saw that he was now dressed in a black OZ uniform, like Kirishima and Dack. He adjusted the spectacles that rested on his nose, and began to climb down. After some thought, Walker grabbed his large duffle bag with the yellow OZ insignia, did the same. 

One of the officers clad in gray walked up to him. But what struck Walker as very odd was his appearance: the man appeared to be about forty-five, with a heavy black mustache and black hair, and rugged features some might consider handsome in their own way. He seemed to be full of power and a sort of mysterious calm. To add to that, he seemed notoriously familiar, or at least his face did. 

The man stuck out his hand and Walker shook it. "I assume you're the Lieutenant Walker that Lady Une informed us about?" the man asked, with an intelligent sounding accent. 

Walker nodded, pulling his hand back when they were finished. "Yes."

"I am Captain Mikhail Dzugasia, though many here have come to refer to me as Comrade Mikhail, and you may do the same if you wish. My counterpart in your organization, Captain Jeffery Gozart, informed me that you were coming as well." He nodded, rubbing his mustache with one hand. 

He seemed to be some sort of deep thought, so Walker didn't interrupt them. The fog was still settling all over the city. Finally, Captain Dzugasia seem to fall out of his thought-trance. "Well, I imagine you and your team must be quite tired. Let me show you to your quarters…" he said, then turned around. Walker blinked, not following him immediately. Kirishima, Bishop, and Mazuri soon walked up to him. 

"Is it just me," asked Kanna. "Or does that man seem very familiar?"

"It must be his face. I could have sworn I've seen it before." Walker shrugged, then walked after Mikhail. "I'm sure he just has a familiar face."

***

"Here is your apartment, sir," said Comrade Mikhail as he opened the door. Walker looked in. It was one of the apartments in the Kremlin, and it had a window view. It wasn't particularly large, but compared to his quarters at Nairobi, it was a luxury suit. There was a bed with a mattress in the corner, and a desk with a lamp on it. In addition, on the wall opposite to the bed, was a large monitor viewscreen with a couch in front of it.

"Wow…nice…" commented Mazuri with a whistle from behind Walker. The Lieutenant walked in and set his duffle bag on the bed and looked out the large window. It was overlooking what Walker was fairly confident was a building called the 'Lenin Library', whoever that was dedicated to. The large building was past the red walls that seemed to surround the Kremlin in a rough triangle.

"I hope this will be enough for the time being," said Mikhail apologetically. 

Walker turned away from the view towards the Captain. "Oh, it's fine, thanks."

"Where do we sleep?" asked Dack auspiciously, leaning into the room. 

Mikhail rubbed his mustache again. "We have co-ed dormitories in the Kremlin."

"Co-ed? Sounds great!" commented Dack approvingly, before performing some odd hand-shaking technique with Mazuri that wasn't quite like shaking a hand. 

Walker sighed and rubbed his eyes, and Mikhail closed the door. Once he was sure that Mikhail and his own subordinates had cleared the hallway, he stretched his arms and took off his overcoat, then loosened the collar to his uniform. The duffle bag with the letter 'O' and 'Z' bold in yellow sat on the mattress, and he was unable to take his eyes off it. Finally, Walker sighed and walked  over to the bag, and pulled back on the zipper.

The bag's contents hadn't changed since he had left Nairobi, unsurprisingly, but it didn't hurt to make sure. Inside was a carefully folded plastic bag that contained, among other things, a spare uniform on a triangular metal hangar, several books full of records, a small computer, and a case with his identification tags, all supplied by OZ Inventory. He reached in, opened the little case, and pulled out the chain with his two identification tags on it. They had been reprinted and reissued after his death, as he had suspected they would be, since he was still in active service. Walker squinted and read the small words on them. 

Christopher Walker  
1st Lieutenant  
4th Airborne Team, E Company  
1st Mobile Suit Division, OZ-01798

He opened his collar and set the chain around his neck, carefully tucking in the tags underneath his uniform. Finally, he got the last two things he would we need from the duffle bag: his small journal and a pen. He pulled back the chair and sat down in it, then began writing as second entree.

***

"And here are your quarters," said Captain Dzugasia as he opened the door. Kanna, being the largest by far, stepped in first and looked around, her enthusiasm quickly fading away. The room was the same size as the one the Lieutenant was staying in, except it had no window. Against one of the walls was a bunk bed, which Dack immediately noticed. 

"I claim top bunk!" he called out immediately, before darting towards it. He flung his duffle bag onto it and immediately climbed up the ladder. However, in his rush, he failed to take notice of the lower ceiling, and hit his head loudly against it. Kanna looked at him and burst out laughing. 

"Fine…" she said between loud laughs. "…I'm happy with the bottom bunk."

Dack shot her a vicious look, rubbing his head, and lay down against the bunk. Mazuri looked around, concerned. "Hey, where do I sleep?" he demanded.

Dzugasia pointed out the couch in front of where would have been the monitor had this been the Lieutenant's quarters. "This doubles as a mattress, if you can unfold it."

Mazuri smirked. "Well, if I can become one of the Alliance's hot shot Leo pilots, unfolding a sofa bed shouldn't be too difficult." He threw his duffle bag onto the couch and sat down. "No monitor?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not. It helps keeps expenses down. Must of our own troops have much smaller quarters."

Mazuri shrugged and lay against the couch. Captain Dzugasia nodded and preceded to leave. "If there's anything you might need, do not hesitate to inform me."

Kanna lay on the bottom bunk, trying to fit her considerable body size on the small mattress. "Uh, thanks Captain," she said, as Dack stretched out on the bunk above him. 

The Captain nodded and closed the door, and Kanna sat up slightly, her legs resting on the bed. She looked around the room, and began to unbutton the top of her OZ uniform. "Well, here we are," she said. 

"Looks like it. It's not a bad place. Not as cold as I thought it would be," said Dack, his head visible to Kanna as he stuck it past the mattress and looked at her. 

"Yes, well, this _is_ the Kremlin," pointed out Mazuri as he began to unpack his stuff. "Personally, I think this is going to be great…the Muscovites will treat us like heroes of the revolution, which is precisely what we are."

Kanna unbuttoned the last button on the top of her uniform and pulled it off, then hung it on the side of the mattress. Now she wore the same black tank top and white uniform pants she had worn at Nairobi. "And of course, you like being a hero, huh Mazuri?" she smirked. 

"Well…" began Mazuri. "…yes! I do like being a hero. I've been one since I joined the Alliance, and ever since _Daybreak_, I haven't been able to exercise my heroship skills."

"Is that even a word?" asked Kanna, skeptically, with one arm over her knee. 

"There he goes, Mr. Alliance Hot-Shot Leo pilot," smirked Dack from his bunk. "You know, for all your bragging, I've yet to see you use this incredible skill of yours." 

Mazuri looked at him, his eyeglasses flashing. "You want to take me on, Bishop?" he asked.

"Bring it!" 

"All right, settle down you two," ordered Kanna. "Remember, I have the command here."

Suddenly, breaking the atmosphere of the room, there was a very loud organic-sounding rumble. Mazuri and Dack blinked, then looked at Kanna. She blinked as well, then looked down at herself, then laughed nervously. "I'm sorry! It's just that I haven't had anything to eat in the past eight hours, besides that energy bar I ate in Aries." 

Mazuri and Dack looked at her in such a way she seemed to loose the little air of authority she had managed to gain. Bishop slowly nodded. "Yea…I have to admit, I'm pretty hungry too."

"There was a civilian café outside reserved for military personnel only outside. I saw it on our way here," said Mazuri as he sat up from the couch. "We can go there."

"Sounds great!" commented Kanna cheerfully. "I'm starving!"

"Either that, or your stomach is trying its singing voice," joked Dack."

"Ha ha, funny man," she commented sarcastically up at him and carefully stood up for the bunk. She grabbed her uniform top, slung it over her shoulder, and reached for the door. 

Dack leapt off the top bunk, managing to land on his feet precariously, and remembered something. "Wait! You think we should tell the Lieutenant?" he asked.

Mazuri stood up, snorted, and followed Kanna. "Walker? Bah…knowing him, he'd probably make up some lame excuse not to join us, at best. Like he doesn't eat or something."

Kanna reached for the doorknob and paused. "Actually, we should probably bring the Lieutenant along," she admitted soberly. "If he finds out that we went out and didn't inform him, he might overreact and charge us with desertion during leave," she said aloud. Kirishima did realize it was a complete load of utter rubbish it was, but it was a valid excuse. _What's important is that I get a chance to talk to him…_

Mazuri sighed and shrugged. "I suppose you've got a point. It's not worth the risk, perhaps." He adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his black hair. "Come on, let's go. The longer we spend here, the hungrier we get."

***

Walker continued writing in his journal, the second entrée. 

It was five years ago. I was fourteen. The Orphanage had qualified me for transfer to the Corsica Engineering Institute, or CEI. I think it was because of my test scores, as I scored a 1982 out of 2000 on the technical exam. I was standing at the station, boarding a boat for Corsica. The Orphanage was too poor to pay for an air ticket, so I went by sea. The trip would take six days, and I stayed in an Economy-Cabin, obviously. That's when I first met her. She was lying in the sleeping alcove, reading a book. She was wearing a school uniform, with a sort of red kerchief around her neck, and a blue skirt. 

Walker bit down on his tongue. If he wasn't mistaken, that was when he first met Lyn. Like Walker, she did have a given name, but was never called by it. He believed it was something like Julia, he couldn't entirely remember. 

_She had brown hair, and a lot of it. That was before she put it into a ponytail. She saw me enter and looked at me. I was dressed in a black-blue overcoat and a brown shirt and trousers. She seemed to scrutinize me very carefully, as though she was judging me. Then she smiled and said hello. _

This, decided Walker, was the first interaction he had with an outside stranger. Until he was fourteen, he had been kept in the Orphanage in Liverpool, never speaking to anyone besides other orphans. It wasn't co-ed…there were strict rules separating the orphans from contact with their peers of the opposite sex. Still, the Orphanage only had so much power over its charges: when members of either gender reached puberty, they would inevitably arrange to meet with each other under carefully planned circumstances. Walker, however, hadn't been one of those people. 

I didn't respond immediately. I was tired, and I wasn't really interested in her, so I sat down at my alcove and began unpacking. Even still, she wanted to talk to me. She came with that childish high-pitched feminine voice, asking me why I didn't speak to her. I plainly told her, as I was unpacking my brown suitcase, that I didn't know who she was and I didn't really care. This caused her to introduce herself as Lyn. She tried to get me to give her my own name, and I refused. 

The pen seemed to be running out of ink, so he tapped the tip against the desk until small amounts of the black stuff began to spurt out. 

It went like that for a few days, I had to put up with her. The weather was so bad that not even the Alliance guards on the ship risked going onto the deck, and all passengers were forced to remain inside. Suddenly, the weather just seemed to clear up when we entered the Mediterranean waters, and she eventually left, telling me she wanted to get some sun. I also wanted to go outside, but I didn't want to give her the impression I was following her, so I just remained in the room and suffocated. Finally, a few days after the storm cleared out, I couldn't bare it anymore. I left my cabin, dully noting that Lyn hadn't returned for several hours. I walked around the decks assessable by lower passengers like myself. __

In all honesty, Walker didn't really remember a great deal before he turned thirteen or fourteen. However, what he did remember from fourteen onwards was very clear, with a near-photographic memory. 

On the decks of the ship were countless pathways, almost in a symmetrical maze. One of the pathways led all the way from the Economy-Cabins to an area that overlooked the pool area on the luxury deck. He walked there, clad in heavy brown rags, his face unusually weathered for his age. 

There, much to his dismay, swimming in the pool, was Lyn. Awkwardly, it was the first time he had ever seen a member of the opposite sex clad in a swimsuit. 

She was at the pool. She called out my name, waving at me. How she had learned my name, I have no idea. I also have no idea how she managed to sneak up into First Class. But she did. __

_From that point on, there was no escaping her. At every corner aboard the ship, there was the ubiquitous Lyn, smiling happily at him, calling him 'Chris'. Eventually, he had to speak to her, if only to inform her that he did not respond to his given name, only to 'Walker'. Soon, he found himself considering the option of throwing himself off the ship._

_Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, they arrived at Corsica. Walker was relieved to learn that it wasn't Lyn's final destination: she was heading to Sicily, for some reason he did not care about. All he cared about was staying as far as he could from her, and never seeing her again._

_He wrote all this down, thinking about it for the first time in a few years since it had originally happened. Finally, he had done it: he had actually documented an important turning point in his life, outside his military and engineering career. _

_Walker expected to feel better from it. He didn't. It had made no difference. The only real difference was that it might have been some excuse that he had a life outside of his career. He sighed and eyed the cup of coffee resting on his desk that he had had delivered to his room about an hour earlier, then reached over and picked it up. Inevitably, he found himself staring at his own reflection in the coffee: his narrow eyes, his thin nose, his unremarkable face. It was the face of an engineer. _

Then again_, he thought, _that's only really half of the story. _He hadn't written the incident that took place, when he was sixteen, and had left to the Lake Victoria Academy, and had ran into 'Cadet' Lyn, again. He put down the cup of coffee and wondered if he should risk trying to express the overwhelming mix of surprise and annoyance he had felt at the time. _

_He picked up the pen and flipped the page in the small book. It did occur to him that he was being over-dramatic…the second time he met Lyn had been much better then the first, since by that time the two of them had matured, 'matured' meaning that Walker had begun speaking more and Lyn speaking less. They had chatted idly, accomplishing far more in a single hour over two cups of coffee then they had on the six-day trip through the North Sea and the Mediterranean. _

_Walker considered whether or not he would begin writing that today, or attempt something else, when there was a knock at his door._

_"It's open!" he called out, not turning his head. _

_The doorknob turned, and into the room leaned the towering Kanna Kirishima. He saw her reflection on the metallic surface of the coffee cup: she was dressed in a black tank top and the OZ uniform's white pants, with the top of the uniform hanging from her waist. _Functionality over fashionI suppose_, he thought. It did make sense. _

_"Officer Kirishima, can I help you?" he asked. He carefully put the small book out of sight._

_"Uh, yes, sir," she said awkwardly. "The team was hoping to go out and get some lunch, if you didn't mind…" she began carefully._

_Walker nodded, turning back to his desk. "That's fine. Enjoy yourselves," he said in his usual indifferent matter. _

_Kirishima nodded, still hanging in the doorway. "Well, just thought I would tell you that, sir," she informed him and began to close the door._

_"Actually, Kanna, wait," he said, standing up. "I'll think I'll come with you."_

_She blinked. _Didn't see that coming_, she thought. "Are you sure, sir? We're going to just be…mostly talking…and eating…" she warned him. _Probably two things you don't do too often. __

_He nodded. "I'm aware of that. Still, I believe it would be wise for me to spend some time with you." He recovered the aluminum coffee cup with its cap and put the book in one of his pockets. "Come on, let's go," he said as he walked over to her._

_She just looked at him awkwardly, with a sort of indifferent, unfeminine expression, as though her mind was trying to think of a reason why he shouldn't come. He let her think, grabbed his overcoat off the rack, and pulled it on._

_"You going to be warm enough in that?" he asked, eyeing Kirishima's tank top. _

"Huh? Oh, yea," she said, coming back to reality. "I'll be fine." By this time, Walker had exited the room though, and was walking down the hallway to the elevator. "I imagine the rest of the team is waiting in the lobby?" he asked.

She took off after him. "Yes, sir! How did you know?" he asked.

"Educated guess."

***

"Captain!" called out Officer Lyn.

Jeffery Gozart looked up from his desk, adjusting his sunglasses, still in Nairobi. "Yes?" 

"We just got a report from Captain Dzugasia. He's confirmed that the 4th Aries Team arrived safely in Moscow."

Gozart looked up. "And the missile?"

"Apparently, Dzugasia says it was from one of the Alliance partisans groups scattered in the area. Walker and his team were unfortunate enough to fly right over them, though the Captain isn't completely sure."

Gozart rubbed his chin. This was precisely what he needed…more Ex-Alliance fanatics.

_Well, they're Walker's problem now…_"Tell Dzugasia that he may fully utilize the 4th Airborne Team to wipe out any partisans in the area."

Lyn blinked. "Sir, are you sure that's wise? The 4th Team…"

"The 4th Team is not on vacation, Officer," finished Gozart for her. "Until the Taurus Carrier arrives, they will be transferred under his command."

Lyn nodded gravely. "Yes sir."

***

The small bar, innocently named 'The Jolly Rodger', seemed cheery enough no the inside. Young girls, most of them fifteen or so, served men and women, most of them serving with the local government. They were not particularly surprised to see Walker and the rest of the 4th Airborne walk in. A young waitress seated them and offered to take orders for drinks. Not surprisingly, Kanna, Dack, and Mazuri all ordered the same beverage: vodka, while Walker ordered some ice tea.

"All right," said the young girl with the apron, radiating cheerfulness, with a slight accent. Those two words, it seemed, were the only ones she could say in English. She courteously said something in Russian, then bowed her head slightly. 

The 4th Airborne just stared at her, and Walker nodded. "Da," he said plainly and loudly. 

She smiled at them warmly and walked away. Kirishima look at him suspiciously. "What did she just say?" she demanded.

The Lieutenant shrugged. "I imagine something along the lines of 'I'll be back to take your order shortly'," he guessed.

"Sounds great," commented Dack, stretching his arms. "Well, this is nice. Definitely nice." He began to ogle the waitresses. "I could definitely get used to this."

Mazuri nodded, thought to a lesser extent. He adjusted his glasses carefully, then turned to the Lieutenant. "Sir, if you mind me asking, why are you here? You didn't strike me as the sort of person who enjoyed spending free time with his subordinates." 

He thought about the question for a moment, then answered. "Well, Mazuri, I suppose I feel that, as your superior, I should get to know the rest of you, whether I want to or not. After all, you all can't be that bad," he said indifferently as usual. 

The native of Kenya nodded slowly. "I understand, kind of." 

"It's a bad answer, I'll admit," commented Walker. "Then again, talking was never my strong point. It would be the same if you asked me why I even joined OZ in the first place. I have a good answer, I just can't really think of it." 

Mazuri smiled. "I suppose that's a good enough excuse, sir." The waitress reappeared, with a glass of ice tea and three large beer mugs. She set them on the table, and then echoed something in Russian again.

"She wants to take our orders," said Walker quickly, more sure this time. "Point at a picture of what you want."

Dack went first and held the menu up to the waitress' eyes and pointed at a salad. Mazuri did the same, pointed at a picture of a fish fillet. Walker leaned forward and pointing at a picture of what appeared to be a cooked sausage to him, then Kanna shifted her chair towards the waitress and leaned over the table slightly, pointing at a picture of a large bowl of something or another. 

"Ah…and can…you get…another one…when I finish…?" the taller woman asked slowly.

The waitresses looked at her oddly and nodded cheerfully again. 

"Just…keep…them…coming…" finished Kanna, before putting down the menu.

The waitress took off and Walker inspected the entrée Kanna had ordered. "Uh, Officer Kirishima, this is a half a kilo bowl of fried noodles," he said slowly, inspecting the picture. 

"Hai, I know," she said calmly.

"Can you eat more then one?" he asked. He knew for a fact that he couldn't. 

"I guess we'll see," she said, grinning broadly. Walker looked at her, with a slightly worried expression and sat back in his seat.

"So, Lieutenant," began Dack, anxious to change the subject, that he had ordered only a very small salad. "Do you have any words of wisdom to us, the future generation of OZ soldiers?" he asked. 

Walker thought about it, probably longer then Dack had. In the sense, he, Mazuri, and Kanna were the 'future generation' Walker had spoke so often about. They were the generation of pilots that joined during and after _Operation Daybreak_.

Finally, he spoke, the three subordinates leaning towards him.

"You have to have faith," he said quietly.

"Faith?" cried Mazuri, mocking disappointment. "I had a girlfriend named Faith! She cheated on me with a girl named 'Chastity'!"

Both Dack and Kanna burst out laughing, and even Walker permitted himself to chuckle lightly. Dack leaned towards Mazuri.

"Listen, man, you may be a hotshot Leo 'ace', but your taste in women sucks."

"Can't argue with you there," agreed Mazuri before taking a deep drink from his mug.

"Anyway, I mean faith," Walker continued calmly. "Not a religious faith or something like that," he said. "I mean faith in what you're doing, and yourself. Faith in yourselves as soldiers, not just young people. Personally, I don't even really believe in a God," he admitted. Most veteran OZ pilots didn't. 

"So, what do you think will help us win, in that case?" asked Kanna between drinks.

Walker shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps the spirit of Humanity," he said. 

"The Spirit of Humanity?" asked Kanna skeptically. "Do you consider yourself a human?" she asked.

That, Walker decided, was a trick question. And before he could inform her of the appropriate answer, the same young waitress in the blouse and short skirt. He decided that whoever said the young women in Russia were any less attractive then the young women in the rest of the world had no idea what they were talking about. 

"Entrees!" she cried, apparently the third word she could say in English. She put down the contents of the tray on her right hand, a bowl of salad and a fish fillet, and in her right hand she put down a cooked steak. She then swiftly turned around, grabbed something Walker couldn't completely see, and dropped a massive bowl directly in front of Kanna.

"Chow time!" she (Kanna) said happily, before snapping up a pair of wrapped chopsticks that had come with the Oriental-style meal and stuffing her face. Walker, Dack, and Mazuri stared at her before they started eating, and watched as she seemed to _inhale _the food, never stopping, except once, when she looked up at the waitress. 

"This is great! Keep it coming!" she instructed her, her mouth stuffed with noodle. 

The waitress nodded and bounced off, happy that she had done so well serving OZ soldiers. Dack and Mazuri began to feed themselves, though Walker was unable to take his eyes off Kanna, as she devoured the equivalent of half a kilogram in around three minutes. 

"…Officer Kirishima…" he said slowly. 

"Hmm?" she said, looking up, still eating, a long trail of noodle hanging from her mouth.

"That was supposed to serve four."

"Eat your steak," she suggested helpfully, then returned to eating.

Walker nodded and impersonally jammed his knife into the steak, then began tearing away at it. Still, it was hard to not stare at Kirishima eating. He had never seen anyone eat like that. And he wouldn't have minded if he had never seen anyone like that.

"So…uh…sir," asked Dack, breaking the silence. "Where's our next job?" 

Walker thought back to the mission statement. "We're being moved to outer space." 

"The Colonies?" asked Mazuri, caught off guard. 

"Yes, if you want to be specific," admitted Walker. 

"I heard that there were some major construction projects going on down there," said Dack.

"What, like a new Colony?" asked Walker, though he realized the idea was very farfetched. Still, he hadn't heard about construction projects in outer space. 

"No, some sort of space fortress, apparently. A garrison for OZ troops in outer space, so the Colonists won't have to harbor them."

Walker nodded, understanding. Suddenly, his pager along his built went off. He took it off and inspected it. "It's Captian Dzugasia, though I don't know what he wants." He looked at his steak: it was mostly eaten. "I need to go. Report back by twenty hundred hours. You guys going to be able to pay for this?"

Briefly, Kanna stopped inhaling food. "Don't worry…" she said, her mouth full. "…I'll pay for it."

"Well, it's only fair, you eat the most," commented Mazuri, cutting off another piece of fish as Dack helped himself to the remainder of the Lieutenant's steak. 

"Yea, well, I need a lot of food to maintain my considerable figure," she informed him as she resumed eating. Not pausing, she systematically emptied a bottle of soy sauce into the bowl, drank some straight from the bottle itself, and shoveled the contents of the bowl into her mouth. 

***

"You wanted to see me, Captain?" Walker asked. He had left the restaurant and approached what appeared to be a large hangar outside the Kremlin. He saw 'Comrade Mikhail' standing in the doorway, dressed in a heavy overcoat. He couldn't help but stare at the Captain's thick mustache and gruff appearance. He was dressed much simpler then Walker, in a pair of gray pants and trousers adorned with pockets. He must have seen him somewhere before, at some point or another. 

Mikhail nodded. "Da," he said, unnecessarily. He beaconed Walker to follow him and the two entered the boxy building. 

"You probably realize," explained Comrade Mikhail, as they walked through the dark corridor, "That we can't just house you as honored guests, despite that is what you are. Times are difficult."

Walker nodded. "I expected as much and understand completely." 

"Gozart informed me that you and your team performed quite well at_ Operation Daybreak_, as well as being blooded against two of the Gundams."

He shrugged, not really impressed with himself. "I've seen my share."

"It certainly seems that way, da?" Eventually, Walker could make out a light at the end of the corridor, and he and the Captain entered a considerably brighter place. 

Walker now stood at the metal gantry that went from one end of the hangar to another, like a bridge, more then ten meters high and possibly as much as hundred meters long. To his side, three weathered and battle-scarred Leos with red stripes on their shields, stood at attention. Sparks played around them as technicians began rifting them. Walker noticed that one of them was the slightly rarer command variant of the Leo, while the other two were the Early-type models. To the untrained eye, they seemed basically the same, except for the two cannons housed on its shoulders, though Walker, as an engineer, knew that the command-variant had better armor protection but difficult using a dobergun, though it puzzeled him why this one was not equipped with a short beam rifle. The Early-types were simply inferior to common Leo models, and OZ had scrapped nearly all of their own Early-types.

"New?" asked Walker suspiciously, explaining what he had been thinking in a single word. From his opinion as an Engineer, the suits looked at least as old as _he _was. 

"Well, they're not new, per say," admitted Mikhail sheepishly. "The fact of the matter is that all that we managed to take from the Alliance were mostly Leos, and a few Tragos and Cancer suits. Understandably, our Leos can't compete with the next generation of OZ mobile suits such as the Taurus Space Mobile Suit, so we've been forced to attempt to upgrade them."

Walker observed the technicians working on the Leos, shouting instructions to each other, wielding plasma torches. _Perhaps the Moscow Pact nations don't trust OZ as much as we anticipated_, he thought.

"The upgrades aren't ground breaking," commented Mikhail, interrupting Walker's thoughts. "We've doubled the number of anti-personnel ordinance launchers from two to four. The rifle is still 105mm, but we've modified the design so that each chassis can hold four extra ammunition magazines, containing about seventy cartridges each. Problem is, you'll have to manually reload it yourself, using the Leo's left hand."

Walker shrugged again, watching the engineers perform repairs. "You're going to press us into duty until you get word from Siberia?"

"I'm afraid so, Lieutenant," he said, a tone of sheepishness in his solemn, noble voice. 

"I don't mind, personally," he said. "My team is a completely different story, but then again, they haven't been in a serious combat scenario since _Daybreak_. What kind of duty are you talking about?" 

"Mostly patrol and search and destroy," answered Mikhail, rubbing his mustache. "Our goal is not to establish a military presence, but to sweep the Motherland clean of any Alliance scum," he said, with a sort of patriotic pride. 

"Sounds easy enough."

"It should be, particularly as the weather gets worse and worse." Captian Dzugasia turned to the Leos. "I wish I could provide you with something better, but…"

"It's all right, Comrade," Walker said quickly. "The Leo is a decent, reliable mobile suit, and its well suited for this sort of terrain." 

"I'm glad you think so." He paused. "Furthermore, I'm afraid that these three suits are currently the only ones I have under my command that are fully functional and refitted for combat. I've given the command suit in particular the best weapons we have available."

Walker stared at it. _These poor souls…OZ is scrapping the sort of equipment these soldiers cherish._ According to the universal markings on the shield and shoulder, the command Leo was precisely like the other two, except it had a dobergun strapped to the back and a large scratch to the right of the cockpit hatch. Something important occurred to Walker.

"There are only three MS. I have four pilots, myself included, in my team," Walker informed Mikhail.

"I'm aware of that, and if I had another Leo, I would gladly transfer it under your control. However, that doesn't change the fact I only have three currently. However, this opens up an interesting prospect: MS equipped for long range like this need maintenance in the harsh climate and the moors in this country. We do have an ample amount of hovertanks and other vehicles like that, some of which have been refitted as coordination vehicles for long-range duty. I was hoping that the 4th Airborne Team might be interested in using one. It only requires one driver."

Walker nodded. "I'd be a fool to refuse."

He could tell that Dzugasia, for the most part, agreed. "They are fairly simple vehicles, but are quite tough and durable, and are not difficult to pilot. I'll let you choose whichever member of your team you think would be better suited for the job."

_Basically, put my worse pilot into an ugly floating shoebox. _Walker didn't have to think long. _Dack Bishop._ He wasn't going to like this. Then again, he had three mobile suits, and as the Lieutenant, it was mandatory he pilot one. Furthermore, the fact of the matter was that Bishop wasn't an extraordinary pilot: even in _Operation Daybreak_, he hadn't managed to score a single kill against a mobile suit, while Kirishima, showing promise, had four kills to her name, and Mazuri, a living Alliance ace, had claimed eight. Walker himself had eleven, below the unofficial 'minimum' of twelve for most Specials Lieutenants. 

Bishop hadn't scored a single kill. And Walker seriously doubted that would change if he had him stuffed into a Hovertank. 

"When can your team move out?" he asked. 

"When can you get your suits ready?" counted Walker. 

"Excellent, Lieutenant," said Dzugasia, rubbing his big black mustache again. "And once again, OZ prevails for the people of Mother Russia…"


	7. The Highway

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 7_**

Mazuri, as it appeared, was not happy. Definitely not happy. 

In the quarters he shared with Kirishima and Bishop, he was grunted loudly and swearing often as he used his entire body to push against the couch. Or, as he had come to know it, the Sofa Bed from Hell. 

"Grr…" he said again as he pushed with his shoulder against it. For the past two hours, since he had finished his fish fillet and decided to retire early due to jetlag (an effect of living in Nairobi most of his life and suddenly traveling to Russia), and had left the restaurant. That was two hours ago, and also about the same time he had started trying to open the Sofa Bed from Hell. 

"Grrrrr….opppennn…." he muttered. The damn thing was locked into place. The Russians might have had the historic title for launching the first, as he put it, stuff, into Outer Space, but they built the World's Worst sofa beds. 

This was stupid, he decided! He had destroyed eight MS with his Leo, earned awards from the Alliance for bravery beyond the call of duty, and HE COULDN'T OPEN THIS DAMN SOFA BED FROM HELL!!!

"Mazuri," said a voice from behind him

By this time, he was pretty sure that he was three Sofa-shoves away from a heart attack, and he turned to see Lieutenant Walker, peering into the room. 

"Briefing in ten, make sure you're there. I've already told Kirishima and Bishop," he said in a business-like manner. He closed the door and left Mazuri alone for a moment, and then opened it again. 

"Incidently, Officer Mazuri, I don't know what they do for Sofa Beds manufactured in Kenya, but in Russia, you're supposed to remove the lock-key at the bottom. It looks like the pin for a grenade, but larger."

He closed the door, leaving Mazuri by himself. Mazuri listened carefully, very carefully, until he was fairly sure that the Lieutenant had left the floor, and began to swear at the top of his voice for several minutes, never repeating. 

***

"Sir!" said Kirishima, at attention. Behind her was Bishop, also saluting. 

Walker stood in his room, fumbling incoherently with an electronic projector he had set on the coffee table, parallel to the large wall-monitor. He looked up briefly, returned the salute, then continued. "As you were," he mumbled. 

Kirishima sat down on the couch, resting against it. "Wow. This is a lot more comfortable then our sofa bed," she commented openly. Bishop sat down next to her. 

"Oh yea, that hit the spot…" he said luxuriously. He brought his head up. "Sir…why isn't Mazuri here?" he asked. 

"He's in your room, fighting his most challenging opponent yet," said Walker briefly, before bringing his gloved hand down against the projector with a loud banging noise, causing it to flicker on. A hazy, unclear image was projected onto the smooth surface of the monitor.

Walker looked at it, wondering why he was unable to remember how to operate a simple projector. The door opened, and A. Mazuri walked in, an expression of grim exhaustion on his face. "Sorry I was late, sir."

"It's all right, Mazuri, just turn off the lights, will you?" asked Walker. 

Mazuri flipped the soundless light switch on the wall next to the door, cutting the rooms lights. The projected image now become much clearer and it became obvious that it was one of a satellite photo rather then a map. It was a combination of snow, forests, rolling hills, and swamps. 

"This is a photograph of the area approximately three hundred kilometers north by northwest of Moscow. As you might know by now, the areas surrounding Moscow have high concentration of Alliance partisans, particularly around the highways that connect Moscow to the rest of the continent." He pointed out a small pointer-device that, when fired at the map, caused a clearly visible bright yellow line on the smooth surface. The pen, a marvel of technology that, unlike the mobile suit, was practical to both citizens and the military, was a branch off of holographic sciences, though it was so simple that its primary advantage that it was it cheap to manufacture and didn't require ink. Such pointers were present in virtually every school and office on Earth and in the colonies. 

"We're running a patrol. Our search area has a radius of about twenty clicks. It's divided primarily into three mission areas," he explained. He aimed the pointer at a spot between two hills, the tops lightly covered with snow. "This is Operation Point Alpha," he informed them, drawing a circle around it in persisting yellow light. "Satellite shows that there's a good deal of wreckage here from where Moscow two-meter artillery shells blasted the area, apparently there _was_ a monitoring post here or something. Watch for am ambush, since the wreckage will fog up our older scanners. Additionally, since we weren't risking taking a direct route from Nairobi, this is the area we flew over when the SAM was launched." He paused. "If there's a SAM site, or any wreckage from it, it's there." 

With a slight tilt of his hand, he aimed the pointed at the long thin stretch of gray that smoothly cut through the forest in a not-quite-straight line. "This is OP point Beta," he explained. "The Moscow-St. Petersburg Highway. Even though the Alliance no longer has any holdings in either of the cities, the highways still a good place to use as a holding area, not to mention being able to cause trouble for convoys and other transport. We estimate this will be where most of the remaining Alliance hardware will be."

He aimed the pointer at a third area, another area with light snow. "This is OP Point Cina. Another snowy area. Moscow recon witness at least three mobile suits traveling through the area."

"Quite a bit of snow, considering its still April, huh sir?" asked Mazuri. It had never snowed where he had lived, no matter what the month was.

"It's not fresh snow, Officer Mazuri," reminded Walker. "It's just frozen ground. Interestingly, this is where the endless forests give away to Tundra. So it'll be a bit cold." He turned off the pointer, the yellow lines beginning to vanish, and hit the projector again, turning it off. Walker then put the pointer into his pocket and took off his cape, hanging it on a coat rack. "On a more personal tone, there's something I want to tell you all."

He turned to them and looked at them carefully. "This is the first mission we serve under upon which you three are directly under my command. My best advice is: don't try to be martyrs. You're soldiers, not heroes. In real life, both don't live very long, but soldiers live slightly longer then heroes because they have the edge of knowing when to quit. And remember, you're going to be piloting expensive hardware, courtesy of the Moscow Pact nations. You might think it's worthless scrap, but it's still costly for them, and they want you to return it in one piece. You're responsibilities aren't limited to completing a mission, you also have to come back as well. I sometimes wish that I had followed that philosophy, but there's nothing I can do about it now but warn the rest of you. Is that clear?" he asked. 

One by one, they seemed to nod, reluctantly.

"Fourth Airborne Team, prepare to move out!" he ordered sharply, changing his tone drastically.

Obediently, they immediately stood up and saluted. "Yes sir!"

***

"What a piece of crap!" yelled Kirishima as soon as she entered the hangar. 

In the same hangar that Comrade Mikhail had shown Walker earlier, the 4th Airborne now stood. Above them towered three, antique looking brown mobile suits, the OZ-06MS 'Leo', standing slightly tilted with their 105mm guns and shields, as engineers made last minute adjustments.  

"Come on," said Mazuri, actually glad to see the familiar face of the face_less _Leo. "It's not that bad." 

"Oh yes it is!" insisted Kirishima, looking up at the old brown titans with disgust. "Have you become so delusionally fond of these things that you have forgotten that the first Leos appeared almost _twenty_ years ago?"

Mazuri was about to reply when an engineer behind him spoke, with a Russian accent, "She's right, you know? The Leo was developed in AC 176, I vink. The Tragos came after vhat, and your Aries were first developed in AC 191."

"Arg!" yelled Kirishima. She kicked the left leg of the nearest Leo, as though hoping to make it limp, but did nothing. "This isn't fair! What about our own Aries?" 

"Vhey will be shipped back to OZ, once you get your new Vaurus suits," replied the engineer. 

"Vaurus suits?" asked Kirishima.

"He means Taurus suits, as is OZ-12SMS Taurus," explained Walker as he entered the hangar, followed by Bishop. He felt obligated to stick up for a fellow-engineer, for some reason. 

Kirishima snorted. "Kind of hard to understand him."

"Well, I'd like to her you speak Russian some time, Officer Kirishima," retorted Walker calmly as he walked to his Leo. The Leos stood in a triangle, two behind the command-variant model. The most obvious difference of Walker's Leo was the two cannons placed over the shoulders, in such a way that using the dobergun required a certain amount of work, but added to the firepower notably. "This one is mine. Mazuri, yours is on the left, Kirishima, yours is one the right."

The huge red-hair woman just looked at him and sighed, grabbing the gantry cable and letting it lift her up to the open cockpit. Once it was high enough, she jumped backwards into the cockpit and, unintentionally, hit her head when she stood straight. She blinked and rubbed it, not sure what had happen, but became furious when she discovered what had happen. "ARRRGGG!!! SIR, THE COCKPIT OF THIS PIECE OF CRAP MOBILE SUIT IS TOO SMALL!!!" she yelled, loud enough to be heard across the hangar, then began swearing in Japanese. 

"Deal with it, Kirishima," commented Walker, actually glad he wasn't that tall, as he carefully climbed off the gantry cable and into the cockpit. After pulling his goggles back over his eyes, a pre-flight ritual for him now, he immediately recognized the older control surfaces from when he first joined the Specials Corps, and rapidly began pressing switches, keying in the startup process. 

Mazuri, no longer upset over the Sofa Bed from Hell, gleefully climbed into the cockpit, giddy with delight. It was almost exactly like the old Leo he had left at Nairobi. Humming to himself, he keyed in the switches for startup. 

"Now, listen girl," he said, addressing the suit. "You be nice to me, and I'll certainly be nice to you." 

The channel popped open with a crackling noise. "Mazuri, I don't think talking to your MS while the com line is open has any effect, to be honest," came Walker's voice. 

"Sorry, sir." 

Bishop, who had come in last, somewhat confused, was left on the ground, as Walker's suit began to move. "Uh, sir? SIR? Where's MY mobile suit" he yelled.

Walker was about to close the hatch when he saw Bishop. "Oh, damn, Bishop, I forgot all about you." He looked down at the engineers rapidly scattering away from the now active Leos as they stood to their full height. "Hey, could one of you show Officer Bishop to his hovertank?" 

Bishop blinked. "Hovertank? Wait, don't I get a Leo like you?" he asked, sounding kind of disappointed. "Sir? Sir!" The Leo's hatch closed, and Bishop was left on his own.

"Sir, if you'll come vith me?" asked the same Engineer, politely. 

Bishop sighed. "What's this about a hovertank?" he asked as he followed the engineer. 

"It is maintenance vehicle," explained the engineer. He led Bishop to what appeared to be essentially a large, ugly, armored shoebox with a cannon mounted on the top and all sorts of random equipment mounted everywhere. "It also has scanning equipment and sensory suite."

"WHAT?" demanded Bishop.

"Very sorry. Is Lieutenant's orders," explained the engineer, before walking off. Bishop just stared at the hovertruck in an expression of mixed anger and disappointment, before entering the open hatch._ Great, so Walker thinks I'm an incompetent fool…_ "Fine, I'll play the game," he muttered before sitting himself in the padded drivers seat and began hitting the startup switches. "A monkey in an OZ uniform could pilot this thing."

"Bishop!" yelled Kirishima over the channel.

"What?"

"Stop tying up the channel! Move out!" she ordered him.

The hovertruck's turbines began whirling loudly, and it slowly lifted up off the metal deck an and began maneuvering around the posts holding the gantry, other vehicles, and large piles of equipment. Finally, he managed to exit the hangar, directly behind the three Leos.

Walker looked around carefully as the rest of the city became visible through the three viewscreens. He adjust the headset and his black uniform cap, and pressed a key to open the channel. "Team, switch to standard frequency, and get into formation. Mazuri take my left, Kirishima, you take my right. I've got the point tonight," he announced over the channel, then put both hands onto the dual flightsticks. 

"Affirmative, sir."

"Try not to hit anything on your way out, all right?" he asked. The three Leos, their camera eyes shining like massive torch lights, continued down a street and exited through a gap between the brown walls that surrounded the Kremlin. Around them were long lanes of uniform-looking brown and red buildings, in a large public square. Red Square. 

The slowly plodded through the streets, catching the glances of surprised Muscovites. A few, after realizing who they were, even cheered. Mazuri looked down at them, considering how lucky he was to be in this situation. "Look at them…they really love us…" he said, using the communications suite to make a video-image of a young lady zoomed in, who was cheering. He stared longingly at the video-image. 

Suddenly, the video-image flicked and was replaced by one of the identical size, but of a slightly annoyed looking Lieutenant Walker. Mazuri nearly jumped out of his own skin. 

"Mazuri!" he hissed. "Stop ogling young female Muscovites!"

"Yes sir!" he said quickly, saluting in the cockpit out of panic. The video-image disappeared and Mazuri took a deep breath and adjusted his glasses, reasoning that the Lieutenant wasn't monitoring him anymore. 

The Leos progressed through the city rather uneventfully, though Kirishima nearly stepped on a stray taxi in the middle of the street, and would have had it not been for immediate intervention on her part. Walker hurriedly took his team through the quickest route out of the city, Leningrad Prospect, not anxious to have to report any accidents to Captain Gozart or Captain Dzugasia. They eventually did exit city limits, Bishop amusing himself by snaking the hovertruck around the legs of the Leos until Kirishima yelled at him to stop it. 

"Damn, there are a lot of trees," Walker said, looking around. The forest was dense to the point that you couldn't see the horizon beyond the highway. 

"Yea," commented Mazuri. "Those Alliance guys aren't having a hard time hiding, I think."

Kirishima's video-image appeared on both their viewscreens. "So it'll be a little harder to find them. 'Bout time we got a decent fight," she said confidently. 

"Don't be so sure of yourself," warned Walker. "Overconfidence has killed lots of promising pilots."

"That's good to know, sir."

"Listen, I should probably tell you all this," announced Walker, as the Leo methodically plodded down the highway. "I realize that, since _Daybreak_, we haven't seen much combat." He felt himself squirming in his boots. "I don't know about the rest of you, but it makes me restless." 

"I've talked to you kids a lot, considering talking is hardly my strong point. This run is about more then some doomed Alliance partisans. Its about finding each other's strengths and weaknesses. I know my own weaknesses, but I don't know the rest of yours. This is where we find them out. Combat, as you know, is about more then who's got the biggest gun or whose fastest. It's the same for mobile suit combat. The phrase 'Offense is the best defense' doesn't mean shit out here unless you are piloting a Gundam or something." This got a slight snicker over the channel. "Offense is good, but in numbers, remember that we're not out here to get killed. Don't take foolish risks, just follow the mission plan, and we'll be all right. And just a reminder: you don't own your mobile suits. So don't think you can go and screw them up."

"We understand sir," replied Kirishima over the channel as she adjusted her heading and systems.

"All units, we're coming up on OP Point Alpha. Break off the highway, fourteen degrees east, follow my lead. Switch to encrypted frequencies for all communication," instructed Walker. _At least I don't need to give any more speeches_. 

Rough foliage in the form of large trees and branches began to slow the Leos down notably. Even the hovertank had troubles maneuvering through the flora. Bishop jerked around in the driver's seat of the hover with every swivel, and finally opened up the channel.

"Sir?" he asked.

"Yes, Bishop?" crackled Walker's voice electronically.

"I'm afraid that the foliage is just too thick, I'll have to stay back."

"Understood. Can you establish a sensor field?"

"Will do." Bishop closed the channel and flipped a dusty switch on the control surface. From the top of the hovertank, slightly right of the small turret, a large metal post running the length of the hovertruck, about eight meters, rose up on hydraulics and locked into position. "Antenna's up. Scanning now," he said into the headset quietly, then shifted to another console with a large red glass circle on it. Small blips formed across one of the circle's hemispheres. "I've got a lot of metallic objects up ahead. Looks like wreckage, but I'm not sure."

A response came from Kirishima. "What do you mean, not sure?" she asked.

"Well, I'm sorry, but all the readouts are in RUSSIAN…" he answered angrily, before turning back to the scanner display. Individual blips were now highlighted with captions underneath them in Russian identifying them. "Be glad I can even operate this scanner."

"It's probably wreckage," Walker assured them. "But just incase, shoot anything that moves."

"Besides each other, right?" asked Mazuri. 

"Yes, besides each other." 

The three Leos slowly plodded into the clearing in the forest. Scattered pieces of Leos, head components, arms, lay on the ground, coated with ice. A burnt-out building rose from the ground, on its last supports. To the disappointment of Kirishima, nothing moved. 

"There's nothing here, sir," said Mazuri, his Leo's eye torch scanning the frozen landscape. 

"Agreed. Let's move onto OP Point Beta," announced Walker. 

"Affirmative."

Outside the clearing, Bishop stared intently at the scanning display. "Something's not right here…" he said to himself. A blip appeared and vanished on one of the hills. He tapped the display to see if it was something wrong with the electronics. "Is this…OFFICER!"

"What?" demanded Kirishima over the channel.

"MOVE! NOW!"

"Huh?" she said, shifting her Leo around jerkily. Behind her, the ground exploded behind her as two 160mm shells impacted behind her, scattering the ice. "Where the hell was that from?" she demanded. 

"Mobile suit! On the north east hill!" Bishop brought his hand down on the scanner display, causing more blips to flicker. "At least two of them."

"How come you didn't identify them earlier?" she yelled at him. 

"Hey! Shut up!" he screamed in reply before switching off his headset and keying the startup process once again. _I am sure as hell not going to get myself caught here…_

_How could I have been so stupid? _Walker turned in the direction that the fire had come from and immediately laid out cover fire. "Kirishima, are you all right?" he yelled over the channel. 

Inside the cockpit of her Leo, the left viewscreen flickered. "Arg…" she muttered, trying to control her breathing.

"Kirishima!"

"I'm fine, sir," she said finally. "Just a bit shaken."

"Fine. Mazuri, come with me. We're going up the hill."

Mazuri shook in his cockpit. "What? Please tell me you're kidding me!" Behind him, another two shells exploded in a crater, forcing him to crouch over slightly. 

Walker stopped firing and immediately began the run up the hill. "No, I'm not. Whoever they are, they must be using all the debris in this area for targeting. Bishop, have you gotten any more data on them?"

"They seem like MS, but they're…they're…" he tried to adjust the scanning detail. "…they've got hover signatures."

"Hovering signatures?" asked Walker. "Bishop, are you sure?" he asked.

"Positive. That's how I found them."

"All right, come on, Mazuri," said Walker. He pressed his feet against the pedals to increase the Leo's running speed, and continued firing. Mazuri followed directly behind them, as another pair of shells hit the ground, resulting in another hole in the ground. 

Mazuri adjusted his glasses, then checked his control surfaces. "Sir, they haven't appeared on my scanners, but..."

"But what?"

Two shots exploded directly behind him, closer this time, shaking his Leo severely. "…I'm almost certain that these are Tragos."

_Tragos? _Shells exploded behind him, causing the viewscreens to flicker. _That would explain the two shells per shot, and the hovering signature._ "I'll take your word for it."

Yes, Mazuri saw clearly, he had been right. Two large light brown OZ-07MS_ Tragos_, dug into the ground for cover, continued their bombardment for a few more seconds. As the two Leos approached into range, the camera lights of the Alliance mobile suits flashed and then immediately preceded to rapidly reverse out of the tranches, though they were several seconds too late.

Officer Mazuri, who was more willing to push the redline limits of the aging Leo, appeared above the hilltop first, screaming over the channel. "DIE, ALLIANCE DOGS!" he screamed. As he came over the hill, his 105mm rifle was blazing at the armored Tragos.

"Mazuri! Take the one on the left, I'll take the one on the right," instructed Walker, trying to make sure Mazuri didn't get himself killed in his heroic frenzy. At almost the same time, his Leo appeared over the hill top, though he began firing more precisely, aiming for the Tragos camera eye as soon as the targeting computer's crosshairs locked. 

The right Tragos' head exploded as a stream of 105mm shells ripped through it, destroying all of the primary visual components. Despite the fact that he or she was now blind, the Alliance pilot nonetheless fired one last shot from both of the shoulder-mounted cannons, and one of them smashed into round shield over the Leo's left arm, knocking it backwards onto the ground. Walker pulled himself up inside his cockpit, waited for the static to clear from the viewscreens, and aimed again, this time for the thin layer of armor over the cockpit hatch. As he did so, he tapped a button on the left side of his right flightstick, firing the two shoulder mounted cannons. Two 120mm shells fired for the last time from the shoulder cannons, striking the armor of the Tragos at an angle due to rushed aiming, causing little effect.

"This time, I'm not going to be so merciful," he hissed. 

Shortly before the right Tragos' head exploded and Walker's Leo took a hit, Mazuri appeared above the hilltop, still firing in rage. A few shots struck the left Tragos, catching it off guard in the rush, though they were so wildly dispersed that they had little effect. The Tragos continued to move rapidly in reverse, leaving its comrade, and fired off two more shots. Mazuri, who had mastered the maneuverability of the Leo, shifted to the side, barely dodging them at point-blank range. 

"What, you think I'm going to fall for that?" he screamed as he held down on the trigger of the right flightstick. Breaking his train of thought, there was a warning tone in his cockpit, and he looked down at his right hand. "Out of ammunition?" he asked.

The 105mm rifle on Mazuri's Leo rattled to a stop, though the Tragos continued backing away from the onslaught. Rather then reloading, Mazuri tossed the rifle onto the ground and fired up the two jump jets mounted on the Leo's back, under its waist. They flared up, lifting his Leo up rather quickly, as he dove towards the Tragos. He went for his only other remaining weapons, the beam sabers stored in the shield, and the distinct hum of a saber filled the air as he was still diving for the Tragos. 

"It's over, you fool!" he cried triumphantly. 

"This is it!" yelled Walker as he closed his fingers around the trigger. The remaining shells inside the 105mm rifle fired, cutting through the armor plating over the cockpit. The former engineer disturbingly imagined he could hear the Alliance pilot's screams, as the circuitry shorted out and the hover engine shut off, and the MS hit the ground. What he had heard had clearly been the scream of a woman, though that didn't really surprise him, as much as he was disturbed. 

Mazuri's Leo missed the Tragos by a matter of centimeters, though the beam saber cut through the hovering mobile suit's waist as he made his pass, and the Leo hit the ground. The upper portion of the Tragos, falling forwards, away from Mazuri, fired two last shots randomly, and hit the ground at its own base, lying there. The hover engine for the lower portion of the Tragos began to spark, catch fire, and fell to the ground as well. 

The native of Nairobi just sat in his cockpit, trying to breath normally again. It occurred to him that he was actually proud of what he had done. He turned the head of the Leo so he could get a clear look at the upper chassis of the Tragos, a smoldering heap on the tundra, then saw Walker's downed Leo, not far from it. 

"Sir! Are you all right?" he asked immediately. 

Walker blinked, the three viewscreens of his cockpit in static, and managed to press the key to reopen the channel. "Uh…I'm not sure. I think my left shoulder is broken."

Mazuri leaned forward, shocked. "How bad is it, Lieutenant? Are you bleeding?"

"I meant the mobile suit's shoulder. _I'm_ fine, personally. Just a bit shaken," replied Walker immediately, unconsciously rolling his eyes. "That was quite a performance, Mazuri. I've never seen anyone fight like that at close range." _Except for Lieutenant Zechs, perhaps…_

"Thanks, sir." Mazuri closed the channel and sat in his cockpit, not even bothering to retrieve his rifle. The red blade of the beam saber flicked and disappeared as it automatically shut down. 

With a little work, Walker's Leo slowly rose to its feet. The damage was quite significant: the 160mm shell had been a direct hit on the shield, ripping it apart, destroying the two beam sabers, and even doing damage to the left arm. Still, all things considered, Walker was lucky. Had it been a dobergun shell, he wouldn't have survived. "Comrade Mikahil isn't going to like this," he muttered, looking at the damage diagnostics on the screen. 

"Sir!" yelled another voice. 

Walker and Mazuri turned their mobile suits to see Kirishima running up the hill, followed by the hovertank. "Sorry we kept you waiting, Kanna," apologized Walker.

"Forget it," she told them over the channel. "I'm just glad you two are still alive." She sighed in relief, then turned to the small hovertank at her feet. "Dack, you should get a better reading from here. Maybe you can find the rest of those Tragos."

"Rest of them?" echoed Mazuri. "There are more?" He wasn't sure how many times he could pull of showy maneuvers like that. 

"Yes. We found out that the 78th Russian Artillery group managed to escape from St. Petersburg right after _Daybreak_. Mostly a bunch of Tragos and their support vehicles, or whatever's left of them," she said, eyeing the debris of two smoking Tragos on the ground. "What do you guys want to say the chances are that they've gathered at the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway?" 

"Let me guess," said Mazuri, pretending to think. "Pretty good?"

"Hai."

Walker's Leo stood to full height, and its torso twisted as he surveyed the horizon. "Well, my entire left arm is out of commission, which means I can't reload or use the dobergun." He side, then pressed a switch on his control surface. The dobergun was released and hit the ground heavily. "Mazuri, I want you to take it."

"Affirmative, sir," he said as he reinserted the beam saber into the shield, locked the dobergun over his own back, and preceded to retrieve his 105mm rifle.

Bishop spoke up. "All right, we're deployed. I've got several metallic objects at rest at OP point beta. Most of them aren't active, though a few have hover signatures. It's hard to tell, but the large ones are probably Tragos while the small ones are hovertanks and such." He looked up from the scanner display. "So, what do we do now?" 

"We continue with the mission," said Walker as Kirishima reloaded his rifle for him, then handed it back to him. "Thanks." 

"No problem, sir."

"Uh, sir," asked Bishop. "How do we do that?"

"Well, our Tragos friends have fought of a simple yet effective strategy for us," he said, pointing at the smoldering upper chassis that Mazuri had separated from the rest of the Tragos. "Lets give Alliance tacticians some credit, shall we?"

***

Inside the dark, and now damp, interior of the hovertank, Bishop shut off the engines. The tank slowly lowered to the ground, switch to passive sensors, and raised its own large sensor beacon. 

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he said over the channel. 

"Bishop! Stop tying up the channel!" ordered Kirishima immediately, as though she had been waiting for an opportunity to yell at him.

"All right, all right," he said, taking off his headset. He set it down on the console and pushed the last switch on a gray series of five, making sure to close the channel. It was the only way he could have a moment of privacy. "Possessive bitch…" he muttered. 

"NANDESKA?" 

Bishop immediately stared at the console, to see that the large gray switch was stuck on the inward position, rather then clicking back, as it needed to, in order to close the equipment. It was probably as simple as a few grains of dirt stuck in it. 

He slammed his fist against the channel, shutting it of manual, and took a deep breath. "Geeze, she was never so uptight outside of battle. It's not like it's a big deal or anything." In all honesty, Bishop didn't know what 'nandeska' meant either, but the woman was huge, and was in an even huger Leo, which he had unwisely parked next to the feet of it. 

Inside her Leo cockpit, Kirishima contemplated whether or not she should stomp on the hovertank, but decided not to waste her time, since they were supposed to remain down. She snorted and reached into the pouch hooked onto the belt of her uniform underneath her top. She was somewhat cold, particularly up on the higher land again, but the tank top was made of a elastic thermal material, similar to the uniform, except it wasn't the same Napoleonic cloth that made the OZ uniforms so unnecessarily flashy, in her eyes.  

After some digging, she found what she had been looking for: a small sandwich she had ordered as takeout from the resturant. By this time, it was notably frozen, and didn't look quite so appealing, considering it was Italian, and Kanna didn't like Italian food or Sandwiches. She would have ordered a course of egg rolls, but a glare from the Lieutenant advised her otherwise. 

She looked at the sandwich disappointedly and bit into it, devouring most of it at once. She chewed loudly, and swallowed and frowned. "Bologna…" she said grudgingly. With her foot, she stomped on the pedal to the right of the chair, and the hatch hissed and opened up. Cold air rushed in, causing her to shiver slightly and resulting in little ice crystals developing in her hair, and she tossed it out. Immediately, before Mazuri or Lieutenant Walker could notice, she closed the cockpit hatch and leaned back, shaking her head to get the ice crystals out. 

"I hate this weather," she said, flickering annoyance. She turned to her left and, through the viewscreen, could see the left arm of the Lieutenant's Leo. All that remained of the shield was the charred ring assembly that had once encircled the arm. Not long ago, it had been glowing red from heat, but now it was frozen over, like the rest of the Leo's exterior. Through the ice she could see a few electronic components and severed conduits. 

Walker himself took no notice of Kirishima as she waited, and quickly got into the best ambush position he could manage. With a little tricky maneuvering, he had managing to get his Leo onto its stomach, and held the 105mm rifle in such a way that the tip just barely peaked over the top of the hill. He couldn't see over the crest of the hill, in this position, but the optical sensor in the rifle could, and that was good enough. In fact, he was quite pleased that, with this position, he could effectively aim and fire with only his right arm, with the rifle resting against the crest of the hill. 

Inside the cockpit, his primary forward viewscreen was now receiving video from the optical camera in the rifle. As normal, a large, digital crosshair dominated the screen.  He slowly increased the zoom to one hundred times, then one hundred and fifty times, then farther. 

Three kilometers away, on the Moscow-St. Petersburg Highway, several Tragos MS rested. Some of them were being rearmed, though many were already damaged and could not be repaired due to lack of supplies. With the optical lenses, Walker zoomed into the point where he could see the face of an Alliance soldier, tired and wrinkled, but still yelling instructions at his soldiers. He couldn't hear him, but that wasn't a problem. There was enough conveyed in his appearance. 

Mazuri stopped moving, his Leo in the same position as Walkers, though his wielded a dobergun which he rested on the crest of the hill. Mazuri had the convenience of being able to use both of his arms, necessary for the task at hand. The dobergun's recoil was difficult for a small Leo to handle.

"So…should we start shooting?" he asked, hesistantly.

Walker pressed one of the six gray channel switches. "Negative. Hold your fire. Remember, we don't have enough units for a barrage. You're going to have to aim carefully and select your targets. Mazuri, you go for the Tragos, while Kirishima and I will aim for smaller vehicles, and maybe a few camera eyes."

Mazuri switched on his targeting computer and zoomed in. "Makes sense," he admitted, adjusting his glasses. "After all, dober guns aren't very accurate."

Inside a hovertank, Bishop was resting back in a seat, wishing he had brought a magazine or something to read while he was waiting, when an alarm went off in his cockpit. "Damn, not again! What is it this time?" It was a different alarm from the one he had heard earlier, and so far, Bishop hadn't gotten any closer to learning what each of the alarms stood for. However, he had decided that all of them were bad.

He glanced at the console. "What? A targeting lock?" He grabbed the headset and slammed his fist against the row of gray communications switches. "Lieutenant! They've identified us! They must have a sensor beacon as well!"

Walker turned his head in his cockpit. "What? Damn…that's going to make this more difficult…"

"Geeze, you know, ever since I met up with the rest of you guys," commented Mazuri, over the channel. "My luck has really been sucking." Without another word, he closed his finger around the trigger of his right flight stick and fired. A bright yellow dobergun shell shot out of the long barrel, knocking Mazuri's Leo backwards notably, and slammed into a Tragos, three kilometers away. Almost immediately afterwards, the Tragos exploded completely, in an impressive fireball, which startled many of the soldiers around it, not to mention the other Tragos. 

"Fire! Fire!" ordered Walker. His own 105mm began to rattle again, as did Kirishima's. The individual shots slammed into the pavement around the Tragos, not very accurately, but in great number, causing hundreds of small but potent explosions. Two Tragos moved into position, and immediately began to return fire, with a 160mm barrage. 

"Great strategy," commented Kirishima as the warning alarm in her cockpit went off, and the 105mm rattled to a halt. "Great, not now!" she yelled, slamming her fist into the control surface.

"Officer Kirishima, why have you stopped firing?" came Walker's voice, almost impossible to hear over the rattle of 105mm shells and Mazuri's dobergun.

"I'm out of ammunition. I'll need a few seconds to reload. Can you cover me?" she asked.

"Affirmative." Walker's Leo moved slightly in front of Kirishima's, absorbing some of the light personnel fire, and continued firing. Not completely sure how she was supposed to reload the rifle when in this position, she switched to manual arm control and began feeling around the Leo's waist for the boxy magazine. At the Highway, disorganized Alliance forces began to scatter, only a few of them really able to return fire, or even bothering to. A Tragos took the blunt of Walker's 105mm shells and the exterior components blew off, rendering it harmless, while Mazuri's dobergun shell slammed into the ground, causing a very large crater in the highway. 

"Kirishima! Hurry up!" Walker yelled angrily. His Leo jolted slightly from the return fire. 

"I'm trying!" she yelled angrily. 

Suddenly, a lucky shot from a Tragos pilot who had taken the risk of exposing himself long enough to aim carefully caught Walker in the head. Before he even had an idea of what was happening, two shots passed through his head, ripping it apart. Walker immediately lost visual input, his viewcreens breaking out into static, and he was thrown around a good deal in his cockpit. 

"Lieutenant!" screamed Kirishima as the 105mm magazine finally locked into the rifle. 

Walker pulled himself up, pressing his back against the seat, trying to comprehend what was going on. His breath had turned into erratic gasps as his lungs were compacted by the restraint harnesses over his chest, and his vision was cloudy after striking his head on the control surfaces _I have to breath, I have to see…_

He blinked, then coughed out an amount of blood that clumped together and smeared across the control surfaces. The Leo's body hung in mid air for what seemed like him to be an eternity, then slammed against steep incline of the hill, hurling Walker forward again. Ironically, the incline of the hill was just steep enough to keep the Leo sliding down the snow and mud. 

The Leo slid down the hill, jerking uncontrollably, smoke fuming out of its neck. After it had impacted with the hill, the shaking inside the cockpit had lessened, and Walker could think again. He immediately stomped his feet on both of the foot pedals and adjusted the flightsticks, trying at least stop his mobile suit. 

"Come on, come on!" he yelled. His headset was broken, but he could still hear the crackling voice of Kirishima in broken pieces. "Kirishima, you're breaking up!" he yelled, pushing the flightsticks as far forward as possible. 

Inside her own Leo, Kirishima watched rather helplessly as the brown Leo slid down the hill, exterior parts popping or ripping off. _We have to do something…_

It occurred to her that fire was still coming from the highway. Smaller shots were still slamming into her Leo with little effect. 

"Mazuri, Bishop!" she yelled over the channel. "We need to cover the Lieutenant! Mazuri, you supply cover fire, Bishop, I want you to fire countermeasures from your hovertank."

"Hey!" yelled Bishop angrily. "I'm upset over the Lieutenant too, all right, but isn't that a bit drastic? We only have one unit of countermeasures! Besides, who are you to give the orders?"

"I'M YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICER, NOW DO IT!" she yelled, as she turned back to the highway and began firing again.

Bishop sighed and reached for a small glass cover on the control surface in the hovertank. He lifted the cover and brought his fist down against the red button underneath, then braced himself.

Nothing happened. 

"Great, now what?" he demanded, before giving the control surface a swift kick.

The tank shuddered slightly, and a countermeasure launcher with four barrels mounted on the outside of the tank on the front loudly fired four canisters at a fourty-five degree incline. Once they were slightly in front of Mazuri, over the crest of the hill, they exploded, spreading silicon grains everywhere. Inside, Bishop yelled sharply, covering his ears. "Well, I hope that helps, LT, because that's our only unit of chaff." 

The silicon grains, or chaff, wildly dispersed and stayed in the air for a several minutes. Shots fired from the highway thus became highly inaccurate, as both Mazuri and Kirishima adjusted their Leos for minimum target profile. Kirishima checked her optical sensors to see that they were thoroughly useless, and opened the channel. 

"Great shot, Bishop, now go pick up the Lieutenant. We'll give you cover fire."

Bishop sighed, resting his head against the control surface. "Fine, whatever." It didn't help that, even with cover fire and countermeasures, rescue missions left you notoriously exposed. He retracted the large scanner beacon, activated the hovertank's engines, and took off down the hill, trying to catch up with Walker's Leo.

All this time, Walker had been jerking around inside his cockpit, trying to regain control. The only systems that appeared to work were the warning alarms and the diagnostics display, the former which had been growing increasingly high pitch and the later which had been displaying more and more red. He rapidly tapped his fingers against the keys and switches, trying to activate emergency and backup systems. 

"Come on, come on!" he muttered. It was hard enough to work when he was constantly jerking around like this. He pulled off a metal flap on the control surface, and tried to inspect the damage done to internal electronics, and was greeted with a the smell of cooking silicon and copper. Between the sound of scrapping metal and ground, he heard glass splintering. He looked up to see that the forward viewscreen was being flexed out of shape, causing to crack. He closed his eyes, and the glass shattered, fragments biting into his uniform. Then occurred to him: in terms of his mobile suit, he was blind, deaf, paralyzed, and falling. 

With this in mind, Walker decided it was time to punch out. 

_Mikhail can always get another Leo, or salvage this one if there's anything left. _

"Kirishima, Mazuri, Bishop, can anyone hear me?" he tried one last time, lurching around some more. "I'm ejecting, just follow the distress signal!" he yelled. Without waiting for a response, he discarded the headset. He grabbed his pistol from the holster secured to the left side of his uniform, checked that it was loaded, and looked between his feet. Sure enough, there was a large handle, with yellow and black warning tape on it. He grabbed it and pulled it towards him with whatever strength he had left, then crossed his arms. 

The cockpit hatch directly between the Leo's chest plates blew off on small, emergency jets. Immediately after, similar jets mounted behind his seat fired, launching the entire assembly out of the open cockpit. While this managed to safely expel Walker from his seven metric-ton coffin, it did nothing to stop the doomed mobile suit. It continued sliding down the hill until finally coming to a stop against a large boulder, biting deep into the remaining titanium structure and mutilating internal electronics.

Walker himself had expecting it to be colder, but he was towards the bottom of the hill, and the warm air rushed past him as a large gray parachute deployed, along with a less then apparent distress beacon. 

"I see him!" yelled Bishop, as his hovertank came to a less then graceful stop near where he thought the parachutist would land. Walker looked down and saw the hovertank, and made a rash decision: about five meters above he immediately loosened the restraint harnesses crossed over his chest. With a little work, he was free, and let himself fall from the parachute. He hit the ground rather ungracefully, and rolled lengthwise down the steep angle for a few meters till he came to a stop. 

Bishop exited the hovertank via the hatch and ran over to Walker, unwillingly dragging his feet through the soft mud and grass. Walker lay there, moaning, face downwards, and the younger pilot rolled him over. 

"Lieutenant! Sir, are you all right?" he asked. _That was a really stupid stunt you pulled…_

Walker stopped moaning and slowly sat up, his face and uniform coated with a layer of mud and grass. "…Yea, I'm fine." He pulled a small fragment of glass from his uniform. "Just fine." He was fortunate he had been wearing his goggles: more then a few fragments of glass had been heading for his eyes. He slowly pulled him off and over his forehead, since he had lost his black cap.

Bishop helped him to his feet, and helped him into the hovertank. Above them, on the hilltop, the fire had finally come to a stop.

***

Captain Dzugasia waited anxiously at the front of the hangar, pacing back and forth. A medical team, summoned by him, waited as well. It was difficult to tell if Walker's Leo group had survived and made it back to the city, and incoming reports of the battle, as well as the presence of the 78th Alliance Artillery in the area, continued to shrink the chances.

"Sir!" yelled a soldier standing at a post at the top of the hangar. "I see two Leos! One of them is trailing smoke!"

Dzugasia rushed to the front of the hangar, to see two Leos, and in front of them, a hovertank. As if to assure him of what happened, there was Walker, his black uniform incrusted with mud and grass, his goggles over his forehead, standing on the top of the hovertank, in front of the turret. 

As the hovertank approached, Walker saluted and jumped off. "Captain. I'm glad to report we didn't loose the battle," he informed him, and then with a more sorry note, "But I'm afraid we lost one of your Leos in the process."

Dzugasia just nodded solemnly and returned the salute. "That's quite all right. Don't apologize; I should be the one doing that. I never intended to send you into battle against an entire Alliance Tragos division."

Walker nodded and walked over to him, brushing some grass from his hair. "Nonetheless, sir, I'm still sorry we couldn't take all of them with us."

"I'm just glad your team survived. Any casualties?"

Walker looked down at himself. "Well, I'll need a new uniform, as well as a new mobile suit. And I think a tore my ankle after ejecting. But other then that, no, the rest of my team is unharmed."

The hovertank came to a halt, and Bishop quickly rushed out, glad to be out of what he considered to be a cramped metal coffin. He came to a stop right in front of an old equipment trunk and sat on it, as two Leo's stepped over him. 

"Christ, this is harder then I thought it would be," he announced, wiping some cold sweat from his forehead.

Author's Notes:

Phew, that's over with. Seven chapters, already….wow…and we're still towards the beginning. This could go on for a while. Ack. Anyway, I'll have 8 out shortly, I hope. 


	8. The City

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 8                             _**

St. Petersburg. After the destruction of most of the Alliance 78th Artillery Division, the city had been singled out by Alliance Partisan leaders as 'an example'. 

And, as was typical with the more desperate and violent members of the Alliance military, the term 'an example' meant blasting apart St. Petersburg from a distance, then entering the city, slaughtering any resistant from the populace, and burning it down to the ground. 

Since AC 189, such acts had been strictly banned by Alliance Higher Command, after an embarrassing incident which later became known as the Los Angeles Massacre, when a single Leo Division reduced nearly all of the metropolis into debris, renaming it 'Shrapnel City'. 

Still, the Alliance Partisans were desperate, and since Alliance Higher Command had been dissolved (or destroyed) at New Edwards Base, there was no longer any Alliance bureaucrats to look down the nose at them.

So, citizens of St. Petersburg, the city selected by the Alliance to become 'an example', braced for what they called the 'St. Petersburg Massacre'. However, OZ, as well as the Moscow Pact Nations, had decided that, while the Alliance might shell the city into oblivion, if they wanted to turn the city of St. Petersburg, with over eight million citizens, into an example, they would have to reach it first. Thus, the city was barricaded, and the population of citizens younger then fourteen years old was evacuated. And thus, a front developed less then a kilometer from the city, where Partisan groups would occasionally leave the safety of their long range bombardment to break through the Moscow Pact lines. 

However, the few of them that managed to break through the lines would inevitably meet their fate in a far less pleasant way: at the hands of OZ. Three groups, the 4th Airborne, the 5th Airborne, and the 9th Ground Assault Force.

"Medics, evac requested of northeast corridor."

"Two Leos have broken the line, I repeat, two Leos have broken the line."

"Hold your position, ground commander, we'll take them. Just get your tanks into the city."

On the bombed-out outskirts of the city, Moscow Pact tanks and MPs waited, their cannons turned towards the thick smokescreen that seemed to separate the front from the city. They had received word that the two Leos that had broken through the line had come out on this area. Left to themselves, the Leos could cause horrendous damage to the population still residing in the city. And tanks alone would have considerably difficult stopping them. 

The tank commander opened the hatch of her tread-operated tank and looked out with a pair of binoculars. "I can't see anything through the smoke," she said over the channel. 

As if to suggest differently, a battalion of ground infantry, some dressed in green and white OZ uniforms, others dressed in the gray of the Moscow Pact Nations, broke through the smoke, joined by a few tanks. They sprinted towards the city, as the tanks and hovertanks positioned where the buildings met the rubble fired countermeasures, covering them. 

As infantry and tanks dove into the city, two large, humanoid figures emerged from the smokescreen and countermeasures, over a dozen meters tall each, one wielding a 105mm rifle, the other with a large bazooka. They twisted on their torsos, surveying the landscape of burnt-out and blasted-out offices and skyscrapers, then advanced down the hill, towards the city. 

The tank commander observed carefully, as her vehicle group began firing 90mm and 120mm shells at the Leos, rather inaccurately. As the Leos came closer, the tanks pulled backwards, using the city buildings as cover.

"Problem, Lieutenant Walker," crackled the tank commander's voice over the channel. "The Leos are splitting up, I repeat, the Leos are splitting up." She immediately ducked into the tank's turret, closing the hatch, as a rocket from the Leo's bazooka narrowly missed the tank and demolished a large supply store in a single shot. She adjusted her frequency. "Lieutenant Walker, can you hear me?"

"Affirmative, ground commander, we're on them," crackled Walker's voice over the static-plagued channel. Inside the cockpit of his black Aries, he attempted to analyze the situation as the Leos began to shoot their way through the city. He had to find some way they could neutralize both Leos as soon as possible. One way occurred to him. "Bishop, you take a few soldiers and distract the one on the right. Everyone else, we're going after the one on the left." 

_Three Aries against a Leo are pretty good odds, even on the ground. _"What?" came Bishop's piercing voice over the channel. "_Distract_ him?"

"Just make it happen," ordered Walker, before closing the channel. He stepped on the foot pedals, and the Aries began to tromp forward on its spindly black legs. He could have hovered or flown over to the Leo much faster, but in doing that, he would risk giving himself away before he was in firing range. The Aries lost a lot of its advantage when confined to close-quarters combat on the ground, but not all of it. "Kirishima, you in ambush formation yet?" he asked.

Her response came immediately. "Affirmative, sir. Ready on the word."

"Good. As soon as the Leo moved down Main Street, fire. Mazuri, prepare for an interception."

The hefty Leo continued marching through the city, smashing vehicles and infantry as it went, occasionally firing a bazooka round to clear out a building. It was facing downwards when it ran into Mazuri's taller Aries, to its disadvantage.

"Interception successful!" announced Mazuri as he fired a barrage from each of the two missile pods mounted under his wings. This proved to be an unfortunate error, testament of the Leo Ace's inexperience with Aerial Mobile Suits. The two missiles barrages just barely missed the Leo, skimming to the side, as the brown Alliance partisan rose up and began firing from a short beam rifle at the Aries. Such missile pods were intended to be used at long range, and in reflection, it didn't surprise Mazuri that he missed. 

_Whoops!_

"I suppose I have to bail you out again, huh Maz-san?" asked Kirishima tightly. Her Aries was crouched on the ground, in an exposed basement of a destroyed building, only exposing her 120mm rifle and her two massive jet turbines, which she had covered with debris beforehand. She closed her grip on the trigger, and a stream of shells came from her rifle, a majority of them striking the Leo by surprised. Its bazooka blew off, as did other pieces of external equipment. "And you're supposed to be the Alliance ace…" she muttered. 

_Time for the killing blow_, thought Walker. His Aries finally appeared from behind a building, skimming to a stop about sixty meters directly to the right of the Leo, opposite of Officer Kirishima. "Die, Alliance dog," he whispered as he fired the missile pod loaded into the hands of the Aries. This was the proper way to fire a missile at close range, if necessary, since the better positioning of the missile pod improved short-range accuracy. True to this, the missile barrage slammed into the Leo's back, causing it to double over, puncturing the internal reactor.

Mazuri also noticed this. "He's going critical! I'm pulling away!" In front of him, the Leo began to glow and melt. He dropped both of the missile pods, retracted the legs of his mobile suit, and rapidly hovered backwards. Shortly afterwards, the Leo exploded in a bright yellow explosion, and a shockwave that was seen as far as eighty meters away.

Down a smaller street, the remaining Leo observed its counterpart explode, then continued to march. 

As soon as he could see again after the explosion, Walker opened the channel. "Bishop, where's the other Leo?" he asked.

The hovertank sped down the street, overturning smaller vehicles as it went. Bishop looked around nervously. "Uh…he's between Second and Third, near the intersection." The hovertank came to a stop in front of a group of green-clad OZ soldiers, who, rather then climbing in, climbed on top of it. One of them carried a normal assault rifle, while the other one held a large, anti-mobile suit weapon. 

"All right. Slow it down, while I get into the firing area. You're going to have to be the bait."

Bishop cried out again. "WHAT? BAIT? Are you insane?!"

Kirishima's voice opened up over the channel. "BISHOP! Don't argue with the Lieutenant!"

He sighed. "Fine, fine." _God, I hate my job._ The hovertank's engines started again, and it maneuvered its way through the building rubble with its three passengers, crossing over to the street where the Leo was. Bishop stopped again, trying to avoid screaming as the Leo lumbered past, firing the 105mm rifle.

The green-clad OZ infantryman and infantrywoman who sat on the top of the tank seemed considerably calmer. The 'large, anti-mobile suit' weapon was essentially a shoulder-carried missile launcher. However, unlike common bazookas held by ground soldiers, this was over a meter and a half long, about twelve centimeters wide, and was designed for one-time use. The infantrywoman switched on the targeting system, and her counterpart hit the hovertank with his boot, signaling for Bishop to move once the Leo had passed.

"Fine, just remember, you'll die before I do," he warned them softly. The hovertank sped to the middle of the street, still in the Leo's shadow, and the infantryman began firing his assault rifle. It was merely to get the Leo's attention, while the infantrywoman could prepare the missile launcher, and reinforced titanium could easily deflect shots from any anti-personnel weapons. 

The infantrywoman aimed her missile launcher carefully, as the Leo turned around, and achieved a lock on the large propellant canister hanging from the bottom of the 105mm rifle. Pulling back the trigger, a missile ripped through the cap on the end of the launcher. It struck the base of the canister, igniting propellant fluid in a massive fireball.

The Leo immediately discarded the rifle, though not before suffering slight damage to its hand, and continued turning towards the hovertank. Bishop swallowed and opened the channel, trying to get the hovertank to accelerate again. "SIR! ANY TIME NOW!"

"Hang on…" Walker was firmly convinced he was only going to get one good shoot before the Leo founds some way to tear apart the hovertank without a projectile weapon. The targeting computer automatically adjusted the zoom lens in the camera for the most accurate shot: the Leo's yellow camera eye. An alarm went off in his cockpit, designating a successful lock with the missile pod. "And fire!"

Two missiles fired from the missile pod. The first one smashed into the Leo's head section and blasting it right off, while the second hit the chest. The Leo lost its step and came crashing down, only moments before Bishop managed to move his hovertank.

"Mission accomplished."

***

And to say that what OZ was doing in St. Petersburg, as well as most of Russia, was going unappreciated was certainly false. 

The three large Aries slowly plodded into the hangar and came to a halt at maintenance gantries, rising above a crowd of cheering Leningraders. Walker calmly opened the cockpit hatch and grabbed the gantry cable, letting it slowly lower him down to the floor. The maintenance crew stationed at what would, for the time being, remain St. Petersburg, began to clap.

Walker raised a hand in appreciation, then turned to an engineer standing next to him and carefully whispered instructions for repairing the Aries. From above, Mazuri watched, as he began to open the cockpit hatch.

"What a glory hound," he muttered under his breath. 

"Mazuri, just shut it," reprimanded Kanna promptly, from his left. She opened her own hatch, and jammed her foot through the triangle ring at the end of the cable, then lowered herself down. Somewhat to her surprised, a small crowd of mechanics and war reporters had developed at the feet of her own MS. 

Bishop's voice crackled to life over the channel. "Hey! How do you think _I _feel? I'm just the unimportant, unknown chauffeur! At least you guys get some credit! What do I get?" he asked. "NOTHING!"

Mazuri sighed. He had asked for this, complaining over the open channel. He switched off all the electronics in the Aries cockpit, killing Bishop's voice, and exited. As he lowered himself to the ground, he was greeted by two young, gray-clad mechanics. Upon closer observations, he noticed that both women were identical twins. The two eyed him curiously, then one of them giggled into the other's ear. 

"Hey…" he said in a friendly voice. "Uh…do either of you speak English?" 

Then just looked at him, and his heart melted. It might have been the fact that he had been serving twenty-hour shifts. Or it could have been the fact that most of the other Russian women were acting professional and weren't biting. 

In the center of the hangar, violently determined news reporters were virtually jamming their cameras up Walker's nose and other body cavities. "I'm sorry," he repeated slowly. "But there is nothing I can tell you about our fight against the remaining Alliance partisans!" He paused, then repeated the phrase in Russian as best he could, and the reporters suddenly burst out into more questions, most of them in Russian. He tried to ignore them, and stared out the open hangar, as three Aries slowly marched out. _Must be the 5th Airborne…_

One reporter spoke out in slurred English, as if to catch Walker's attention. She wore the _BBC_ logo on her uniform. "Sir! Could you tell us how long St. Petersburg will remain under siege?"

Walker shook his head, then began to force his way out of the circle of reporters, slowly. "No, I'm sorry, but I can not divulge that information, and you'll have to wait until the press conference in twenty minutes…"

"That's right! NOW BUZZ OFF!" screamed Kirishima, appearing out of seemingly nowhere, dressed in full uniform. She broke her way through the reporters easily, then pressed her large palm against the camera lenses of the BBC reporter. "Get these reporters OUT of the hangar!" 

Rather then face a two-meter tall foreign soldier, the reporter nodded and quickly backed away, and the others began to part in their directions, allowing Walker and Kirishima to exit without difficulty. Nonetheless, then continued to follow him, undaunted. 

"Thanks back there," said Walker quickly.

"No problem, sir."

"Lieutenant!" cried Mazuri. He pasted Walker quickly, walking in the opposite direction, followed by the twin Russian technicians that had taken such a fond interest in him. "I'm going to…uh…go rest…" he said quickly.

Walker raised a hand. "I don't care, as long as it's legal, and you're back in four hours. And don't go wandering off too far!" 

But by that time, Mazuri and the two technicians had disappeared into the crowd of reporters. Kanna sighed and grabbed her Lieutenant by the arm and pulled in away from their grasp, and into a lift. "Listen!" she screamed at the reporters. "If any of you follow either me or my boss, I'm gonna give you holy hell, understand?" 

She continued to yell at them and erratically pressed the key on the lift control, until the doors closed, then seemed to undergo a complete transformation. She took a deep breath, unbuttoned her uniform top and let it hang from her belt, and leaned against the metal frame of the lift car, her head resting on her hands. "Geeze, it's the press you gotta worry about, not the Alliance partisans." She closed her eyes and continued breathing deeply. 

"I'm starting to understand why Comrade Mikhail was confidant that it was just a matter of time before the central soviet enacted censorship laws, until this whole mess was taken care of."

Kanna nodded. "Well, like they say, the only safeguard against tyranny is free access to information. That's precisely why all those Before Colony superpowers failed in the long run." She opened her eyes and turned to Walker. "Sir, what's a soviet?" she asked.

"It's a Russian word for 'council' or 'congress' or something of the like," he informed her. There was a ringing noise, and the elevator came to a halt. Quickly, the chain mesh doors and reinforced steel doors pulled apart, and Walker exited. "Well, if they do enact temporary censorship, it'll be too late. I've got to go give a press conference, and pick up the mail."

After he exited, Kirishima leaned slightly to the right to see him better as the doors closed. "Mail call? Hey, I'm expecting a package…"

"Yes, something from home, I understand," assured Walker as the doors closed. He turned and headed to his temporary office, down the hall. The hangar was built directly into the St. Petersburg Command Center, a huge, heavily armored pyramidal building that easily resisted the bombardment from the partisans. From the inside of the Center, or at least the hallway Walker was passing through, several dozen meters from the surface, it was difficult to tell that the city was on the verge of disaster. 

He punched the combination for one of the metal airtight doors lining the hallway, and entered. As he had expected, the room had already been entered, and a sealed mailed package with the OZ emblem and seal stamped on it was resting on his desk. He was about to open it when his wristwatch started beeping. He looked at it, then sighed. 

Press Conference. It was probably the thing he hated most about his mission in Russia, from a very long list. 

He left the package there, grabbed his cape off the rack and slung it over his left shoulder, and quickly exited his office, running down the corridor for the press conference room. He arrived, a few minutes late, and reporters from _CNN Russian _and _BBC_ had begun to figuratively eat the representative from the Moscow Pact Nations alive. 

He walked up to the podium and the representative quickly rushed off. Walker cleared his throat and tapped the microphone, waiting for the reporters to be quiet. _Fancy I have to waste my four hours of rest answering questions for the paparazzi…_

"Who are you?" one of the reporters demanded, in accented English, once she noticed him.

"I am 1st Lieutenant Christopher Walker," he said promptly. "I'm one of the OZ forces stationed to here to protect the city, as well as eliminate any guerillas from the Former-Alliance Forces. My team, the 4th Airborne, of E company, of the 1st OZ Mobile Suit Division. I can answer some of your questions…"

As soon as he said that, ever report in the room began to speak in unison, and he tried to regain order. He pointed at one of the reporters, signaling that he would answer her question and hers alone. 

"How long will the guerilla forces remain a threat to Russia?" she asked quickly, holding up her pen, as the crowd began to quiet. 

"I'm not at power to answer that," he said quickly, causing another upheaval. He raised his hand, "However, I can inform you that, for the threat to this nation to end, we would need to effectively cut the Former-Alliance's legs off from under them."

The reporters looked at him blankly, not understanding a word he had said.

"We'd need to cut the guerilla's supply lines. Currently, the only way they function are from a few bases in Central Europe. Then no longer have Luxemburg, Romania, or Yugoslavia. As a result, the only remaining areas they have for supplies are southern Ukraine, eastern Poland, and the area formerly known as 'the Sanc Kingdom'."

"So, you're saying that, once all three of those locations are secured, Russia can stop fighting."

"Both yes and no," answered Walker quickly, causing yet another upheaval. "I sincerely doubt your nation will ever stop fighting. However, OZ's fight will end with only the collapse of the Alliance Sanc Kingdom Garison. Our cooperation treaty with the Moscow Pact Nations, as of After Colony One-Nine-Five, will then be limited only to us supplying mobile suits. The Sanc Kingdom Garrison, realistically speaking, is the most important link for the Alliance forces in the Eurasian landmass. A victory there will be a major accomplishment," he finished, adding, "And I am sure that my counterpart, Lieutenant-Baron Zechs Merquise, will have little difficulty defeating the remaining ill-equipped garrison forces." He smiled triumphantly, and began for another wave of questions. 

***

Kanna Kirishima sat in her Aries cockpit, her chin resting on her arm, her elbow pressed against the flightstick, as she watched the report from _BBC_ on the Lieutenant's press conference. "Well, that's one way to handle them, I suppose," she said in Japanese. Nowadays, she found that she only spoke Japanese when she was alone. She still thought in Japanese, if one could say that literally, and once in a while she would include a one-syllable word like 'Hai' in her speech, but that was it. "But if they keep this up, eventually, they'll eat him alive."

The small videoimage on her left viewscreen flickered, and the _BBC _report continued. She lowered the volume and rested back in her cockpit. After wandering back to her quarters and grabbing a light meal at the cafeteria (actually, it was not that light, she ate an entire pepperoni and cheese pizza) she had tried to sleep, but had found herself unable to. So, she came back here, and was making small adjustments, tweaking her Aries to her level of performance.

While not anywhere near as versatile as its older cousin, the OZ-06MS 'Leo', the Aries was still very flexible, and one could 'tweak it', so to speak, to meet their specific needs with a little bit of time and hands on experience. Like the Leo, is was a matter of adjusting the degree setting on the joints, the burn-rate on the turbines, and other minute details. For example, Kanna had been, since they had arrived in Russia, fine-tuning her own Aries to  better suit it for the close-combat role, something the Aries was not typically well suited for. She had raised the degree setting on the joints, allows for quickly reactions, but at a price of more unsteady flying and hovering, allowing her to, as Dack had quaintly put it, 'duke it out with the Alliance dogs'. 

She inserted a small flashlight into her mouth, turned it on, and held it there like a cigar, leaving her hands free to carefully adjust the dials located directly beneath the exterior control surfaces. After a good deal of delicate work (something that, due in part to her large size, people did not think she was capable of) using a screwdriver, she spat out the flashlight and opened the cockpit. 

"Hey! Vladimir!" she yelled out. "I need you to reset the left kneecap joint from twenty-eight-point-four to twenty-nine-point-seven, all right?" she screamed out to the technician beneath her.

The middle-aged gray-clad man nodded and scurried to the leg joint, which had the exterior armor plating removed for easier modification, and slowly adjusted the large gears located there with a very large wrench. She remained in the cockpit and stared at the now mute videoimage from _BBC_. Lieutenant Walker was still standing at the podium, his eyes darting around madly, pointing at individual reporters. 

Shattering the near-silence of the currently empty hangar, an alarm went off, causing Kanna to immediate stand up and hit her head on the cockpit ceiling. She swore loudly, in her native tongue, and looked around, checking the control surfaces from some sort of alarm. Chances were that Engineer Vladimir had tightened a bolt too tightly or adjusted the degree setting past redline limits, or some other error.

She looked down from her cockpit and realized that the alarm was coming from outside in the hangar, and looked down to Vladimir, who had also been caught off guard. "What's going on?" she yelled down at him.

"Ah…emergency signal!" he said as quickly as he could. Vladimir was an excellent engineer, and could understand an above average amount of English, but had trouble speaking it. He rushed from the leg of the Aries over to a console. 

Kanna checked her own sensor screen, and rapidly received an update transmitter from the St. Petersburg Defense Force to all friendly mobile suits: a single Leo had broken through the line at the South-East quadrant. This wasn't a huge problem, except for the fact that the Leo had come during resting hours, when over seventy percent of mobile suit pilots were resting, and most others were having their equipment re-supplied and refitted. 

A glimmer came to her eye. She turned to Vladimir and yelled at him again. "Hey! Open the hangar doors, I'm launching!" she yelled, and closed the cockpit hatch. The middle-aged engineer turned and blinked, confused at this request, but obediently hurried over to the control station and flipped the large circuit breaker to open the hangar doors. 

She ran a start-up diagnostic on the Aries. A warning came up on the fact that the left kneecap was missing its armor, but this was a relatively small issue. The 120mm only had twenty-three cartridges in its magazine. She hit the emergency release that held the Aries to the wall of the hangar via several metal harnesses and began to slowly lumber out of the hangar. 

Kanna set the headset on, opened the channel, and exited the hangar. _Fifth Team must have been incinerated or something…_Whatever the case was, they must have taken a few of the Leos with them, since Leos generally broke through the front in groups of three to five. The lone Leo was now going down Storazahki Boulevard, almost at the intersection. She switched off her sensor suite; she was going to sneak up on the Leo and take it at close range, as she preferred. 

A few mental calculations told her the Leo was moving at a slow thirty to thirty five kilometers an hour down the street, and would passing turning at the corner in about twenty seconds. That gave her fifteen seconds to get into a position of her advantage. She hurled herself along the road, the Aries' legs pumping at about fifty kilometers an hour, battering the shattered streets. When in position, she came to a stop, and waited. 

The Leo continued lumbering, not picking up the Aries on its sensors. Normally, it would have been able to detect the mobile suit's large titanium signature, but the urban terrain made it impossible. The pilot had no idea what was about to happen, rather, he was just happy with the fact he had survived a close encounter with another OZ Aries team. 

Abruptly, a building exploded behind him. A cloud of concrete and plaster particles emerged, blinding him visually and jamming up his sensors. Before he could react, a barrage of shots came from the center of the cloud, and several 120mm shells slammed into his Leo, blasting off external components and shattering his camera eye. 

_How did…? _As he tried to think, Kanna brought her Aries through the cloud, using her jet turbines to propel her at nearly one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. She kept firing for a few more seconds, till the magazine was completely empty, and smashed the bulk of her mobile suit into her opponent. The two mobile suits crashed into another building, creating another expanding cloud of debris. 

"Take this!" she yelled into her headset. She retracted her legs and fired up the turbines within them, and quickly began to lift up, a trail of plaster dust marking her path into the sky. She rose up, dragging the seven-metric-ton Leo up with her, so that she was facing its back. Had she turned it around so she was face-to-face with the enemy Leo, she would have seen a curious sight: inside the Leo's battered cockpit, the Alliance pilot was going berserk, fumbling madly at the ejection lever between his legs. The cockpit hatch was jammed halfway open, and smoke was pouring out. 

_How did…?_

The Aries and Leo continued spinning madly upwards, as the Kanna heat the afterburners and began rapidly depleting her fuel cells. Had she been of sound mind, she would have noticed the alarm going off in her cockpit, and the electronic displays of the contents of the two cells rapidly being depleted. Rather, she was just as berserk as the Alliance pilot, huge amounts of adrenaline and hormones coursing through her veins.

The spin, understandably, had given the mobile suits as slightly off-course flight pattern, and the smoke trail made it clear that they had drifted about two hundred meters to the north, besides the kilometer they had risen up. They were now directly over the St. Petersburg Command Center, and the terrified Alliance pilot was treated to a view of the massive structure from a thousand meters up. 

_How did…?_

Kanna's fanatical craze seemed to falter for a moment as the mobile suit came to a halt at that altitude. She heard the alarm, and glanced down to see that the two fuel displays read that their cells were almost completely empty. This didn't really worry her though, and the fanatical craze she had put herself in was long to wear off.

"Well, I don't have enough time for this," she yelled. With a single swift movement, she punched her Aries' right arm through the Leo's central torso, the tip of the 120mm rifle ripping through and emerging through the other end. From that point on, the Leo began to steadily disintegrate, as the arms and legs broke loose and fell off. The fire inside the Leo had reached full-force, and explosions were billowing up all over it.

The Alliance Pilot, still alive despite all that, managed to finally kick the hatch free, and saw the full magnitude of what was happened. At the same time, Kanna pulled back on her flight sticks and the Aries' grip loosened. The Leo fell free, and went plummeting to the ground, just as fast as it had risen. It crashed onto the top of the St. Petersburg Command Center, however, but the structure was so huge and massive, it did little more then graze the surface when it exploded into thousands of smaller pieces. 

She came down more gracefully, but not by much. The Aries, in an effort to save fuel and avoid stalling, proceeded into a rapid dive, between seven hundred to eight hundred kilometers an hour. Only a few dozen meters from the street did she pull up, feeling as though she had sufficient speed to avoid stalling. She extended the mobile suit's legs and the eight-metric-ton structure hit the ground with a considerably jolt, throwing Kanna in her cockpit forward. 

And the craze seemed to die off. 

Kanna first found herself wondering why the landing had been so hard, when she realized she had forgotten to secure the restraint harnesses over her chest and arms, and had been keeping herself in place with her own grip. She slowly released the two flightsticks and looked at her palm-gloved hands, which were sweaty and damp. 

And yet, she couldn't seem to stop smiling. She found herself laughing loudly in her cockpit. 

This, she thought, without any sort of doubt in her mind, was the ultimate thrill available to her, as a human being. Nothing, no sort of drug or narcotic, could simulate the sort of rush she had gotten into just now, and she could still feel her warmed blood coursing through her body. 

When she finally stopped laughing, the first words on her lips were "Better the sex…" 

She loved her job. 

***

A sentry guard on top of the Command Center had caught the whole thing on his helmet camera. He found himself just staring at the explosion that still hung there in the sky, like a giant stain on the sky. He even ignored the constant artillery fire in the distance.

His first thoughts went to the insane pilot of the black OZ mobile suit, but those had been interrupted when seven turns of smoldering titanium had come pouring down on him from a click up. Once the immediate danger from that had subsided, he turned his attention back up to the black MS. He switched on the small camera built into the side of his helmet and recorded everything, reasoning that there was no way his barracks mates were going to believe it when he explained what had happened unless he had undeniable proof.

Eventually, the smoke cleared out and the black aerial mobile suit had disappeared. He turned off the camera with a tap to the right side of his headgear, and resumed his watch, when another question came to him.

_What the hell _was he going to do with the seven metric tons of titanium scrap that was still burning on the roof?

***

In the Royal Palace of the Sanc Kingdom, electronic communications had been reestablished for the first time in nearly two decades, at least on a basic level. _British Broadcasting Corporation _was the first channel that came into a temporary video receiver. It was basically just a monitor set on a desk with a transmission/receiving mechanism hooked up to it, but it served the purpose. 

Instructor Lucrezia Noin hit the mechanism with her gloved hand, causing the image on the monitor to flicker. Behind her, staring at the screen, sat Lieutenant Zechs Merquise. He idly scratched the bandages wrapped around his chest and stomach under his uniform, which he had received for his injuries piloting the _Tallgeese_.

"Well, Walker seems to be doing fine for himself," Noin pointed out idly. The sheer emptiness of the massive Palace was disturbing to her, and it didn't help that Zechs was speaking very much.

The Lightning-Count nodded his masked head. "Yes. I'm surprised he still have faith in me, after what happened." Walker's voice was crackled and plagued with static, just like the image, from the monitor's speakers.

Noin blinked. "Why? You didn't do anything to disappoint him." 

Zechs stood up. "Yes I have," he pointed out. "He just doesn't know it."

_I suppose that's true_, thought Noin, looking briefly at Zechs, before turning back to fiddle with the transmitter again. "You're saying he doesn't know about Otto?" she asked.

Zechs nodded. "He doesn't, or at least he didn't at the time of this press conference. And once he finds out, he'll be very disappointed." 

Despite herself, Noin smirked. "You're making it out that Walker's approval is similar to that of someone like Mr. Treize's. I wouldn't worry about it so much. We're all sad about what happened to Otto, but we've got to move on." She stood up straight and turned to Zechs. "Besides, Walker would probably understand better then any of us. He knows what it feels like to die."

The Lightning-Count stood up. "Whatever the case is, I still think I should apologize to Walker. Or at least thank him for Tallgeese."

The Instructor walked up to him, shaking her head. "Mistake. What happened to Otto was a direct result of Tallgeese's use. You might as well suggest that Walker was directly responsible for Otto's death. Besides, you've already sent him a letter a few days ago."

Zechs looked at her through the glassed-plated eyeholes in his chromium mask, then turned away and walked down the hall. 

***

Zechs Merquise, in fact, had been right. 

Once the press conference had finished, Walker immediately made his way back to his quarters, where he checked the mail. There were two envelopes: one was the next mission statement, which he gratefully interpreted to mean that his team would soon be reassigned. The other one also caught Walker's attention: it was from Lieutenant Zechs in the Sanc Kingdom. 

Considering that there was nothing for Zechs to congratulate Walker on besides his own survival a few months ago, the letter was probably delivering bad news, and Walker looked upon it as an omen that had come too late. He took the envelope with the mission statement and cut it open with a silver and chromium letter opener he had received as a gift from Comrade Mikhail. 

It read:

_To:              1st Lieutenant Christopher Berker Walker, commander of the 4th Airborne Team, E Company, 1st Division_

_From:           Captain Jeffery Gozart's Command Staff, 1st Division_

[By 'command staff', Walker immediately took it that Gozart's secretary had typed out the letter, rather then Gozart himself.]

_In light of the events that have recently taken place, your team's presence in the nation of Russia is no longer necessary. The recent destruction of the Sanc Kingdom Garrison has insured that the threat from  Alliance Partisan forces will be rapidly subsiding. As a result, OZ Higher Command has requested that we transfer four of our able veteran teams to Outer Space, in order to assist the Interstellar Space Colonies. _

_Your team, along with the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and 8th Airborne teams, will be transferred to the Siberia Manufacturing Plant, and given new mobile suits for use in space. At your best discretion, once you believe your team has properly understood the use and piloting of the OZ-12SMS 'Taurus', you will leave for the Space Colony L2-1X999. By then, and office should have already been set up by the Colony Delegation to act as your home base, though the colonies close proximity to its neighbors and its strategic location will more then likely guarantee that your tour of duty will include other Space Colonies. You purpose in Outer Space is to clean up the last scraps of the Alliance Space Armada, as well as to help take control of all of the Former-Alliance's Missile Satellites. Captain Gozart will contact you once again when you arrive at Siberia. _

_Attached is your check, as well as the paychecks for your three subordinates, Officers Kirishima, Mazuri, and Bishop, respectively. _

Walker found himself eyeballing the letter suspiciously, reading his way through the statement, trying to identify any minute details Gozart's secretary may have intentionally or unintentionally left for him. Walker didn't know why they had waited till now to inform him of the Sanc Kingdom's liberation, or how they had kept it from the press, but it was possible that the Garrison had just collapsed yesterday. Under closer observation, the red stamp on the letter, underneath the OZ insignia, showed that he had been mailed two days ago, so that was the latest possible time that the Alliance Garrison had remained intact.

Another question occurred to him: did this have something to do with Tallgeese? Had Zechs received Tallgeese just a few days ago and managed to not only master it, but also destroy the entire Sanc Kingdom Alliance Forces? Or had Otto actually managed to deliver the suit several months ago? And why hadn't he sent him a letter? Tallgeese was still Walker's direct responsibility, thought the fact that he had allowed Otto to deliver it might have changed it in the eyes of OZ High Command. 

That had been hindsight. His only hint was the clue that lie in the words 'rapidly subsiding', which meant that the Alliance soldiers were already dead or dying. 

"Once I go into Outer Space," he said aloud to the walls. "I'll find out what's the deal with missile satellites. But first, I need to receive compensation." He pocketed the mission statement, and inspected the four long packets of paper with the Oz Insignia on them. Not trusting himself to open his subordinates' paychecks, he grabbed his own and tore the seal, and inspected it. For a moment he stared at it, then blinked his eyes and looked at it again, to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. 

"…that's a lot of money. A lot of money…" 

The paycheck he had just received for the past two months was more then the total accumulation of a year's paychecks as an Officer. The rank not only came with the command, it came with a lot of money. He was now literally making six figures in British pounds, the currency most commonly used by the Romefeller Foundation, since the Euro had lost value since the collapse of the Alliance. He inserted his own paycheck into his pocket, then inserted the three remaining ones, still sealed, into the folded mission statement. 

 It was then he noticed the other letter from Lieutenant Zechs he had almost forgotten about. Using the letter opener again, he extracted it and unfolded it. It ran:

_My dear comrade Walker,_

_I apologize for not having communicated with you earlier at the Nairobi Airbase. Things have been difficult, as you might understand. However, I didn't send this letter to get your pity. _

_I sent this letter to inform you that, as of April 28th, six hundred hours, our mutual friend, Joseph Otto is dead. He appeared to die of a combination of several broken ribs he suffered on his first attempt to pilot Tallgeese, shortly before he delivered it to me, and his second, where he appeared to have ruptured his liver and kidneys. He was already dead when he recovered the machine. _

_Captain Otto died when he, rather then myself, piloted the Tallgeese prototype that you presented to me earlier last month. I proved to be unable to pilot the machine on my first attempt, but something, precisely what I am not sure what motivated Otto to go on what can only be described as a suicide run, and managed to defeat the entire Alliance Garrison in the Sanc Kingdom single handedly. I am forever in his debt, and I am sorry I let this happen to our old friend. _

_With Sorrow, _

_Zechs Merquise,  
Formerly the Lightning Baron_

Walker just stared at the later and set it down against his desk. His first thought was how Otto had been foolish enough attempt to pilot the thing after breaking several ribs. Otto had never struck him as one who wanted to be a martyr, but now he was, in the same sense that Walker had been. Except Otto was dead. Permanently. He hadn't just been in a coma when they recovered him in _Tallgeese_, but very, very much dead. 

_Damn it, Otto, why did you have to die and hold me responsible?_

After a few moments, he tore the incriminating letter into smaller pieces and tossed it into the wastebasket, then left with the mission statement. 

***

It never occurred to Kanna how nice the sun look as it set over the St. Petersburg Skyline. Or what was left of the skyline, anyway.

Most of the buildings were, for the most part, blasted out or capsized. The only structure that remained untouched was the Met Life Building, it seemed. Furthermore, Kanna had never been one to really appreciate art. She remembered when she was seven or eight, how her parents would take her to museums or auctioning houses back in Okinawa, hoping she might, with luck, develop a taste for art. If there was something that 'Little' Kanna thought was particularly interesting, they would immediately purchase it and she would feel obligated to stare at it until it became less then interesting. Of course, back then, her twin younger brothers were only three or so, and since they were always under the care of several nurses, so her parents spent most of their free time with her, teaching her music, literature, and, of course, martial arts. Only martial arts stuck on, though Kanna could obviously read, and could play one of those metal triangles. 

Her Aries was against the base of a blasted out office building, on the edge of what used to be a City Park. The little 'stunt' she had pulled resulted in it suffering significant damage to its legs, which meant it had a very bad walk, and had emptied both primary fuel cells, which meant it couldn't hover or fly, either. It was pretty much stuck there until a refueling vehicle would arrive. 

After staring at the sunset for a while, she sank back into her cockpit and checked the diagnostics. Almost everything beneath the Aries' waist was highlighted in red, though everything else seemed unharmed. Using three fingers of her right hand, she flipped down three red switches, shutting off the display screens, then turned back to the sunset. 

_Well, might as well send out a beacon…_She casually moved her hand to a different control surface, pressed a red button, which caused a metal surface to rise up, to reveal a keypad similar to the ones on phones, and punched a four-number combination. It beeped again, and the panel closed. Now all she had to do. She closed her eyes and eased back into the padded cockpit seat, pulling her black uniform top over her like a blanket, and tried to get some sleep, leaving the cockpit hatch open.

And for about ten minutes, as she waited for the service vehicle to arrive, it seemed to work fine. Then something peculiar happened. 

Stirring from her sleep, she blinked a few times groggily, then she shot awake. 

There was something slightly warm resting on her stomach, in sort of a coil shape, underneath her uniform top. She swallowed, feeling nervous for the first time in several months. 

There was no doubt about it. By the shape of it, and the lack of body warmth radiating from it, it was a snake. And Kanna Kirishima, officer of the OZ Mobile Suit Corps, Noblewoman and Heir to the Kirishima Estate, was terrified of snakes. 

_Oh my god, oh my god, it's a snake, it's a snake…_she kept repeating in her mind. She tried to stay in control, but was shuddering uncontrollably. Her first thought went to how a snake had gotten on her stomach, and what it was doing there. After a while, nervous as ever, she managed to reason that it had crawled from one of the surviving trees of the park that came in contact with her Aries, and it had crawled up onto her stomach to get some warmth in the colder St. Petersburg nights.

_Stupid damn snake!_

Kanna hated snakes, probably more then she hated any other living things. She wasn't completely sure why she hated them; it was probably from some incident when she was a child. The fact of the matter remained, the snake on her stomach was totally harmless, since it was mandatory for all OZ officers to receive vaccinations against snakebites; the only thing she was terrified of was her own mind. 

_Stupid, stupid damn snake!_

So she just sat there, yelling at herself for not shutting her airtight cockpit to keep the snake out. Hours seemingly passed, though it was probably closer to only twenty minutes or so, before she heard an armored vehicle come driving up to the base of her Aries, a few meters beneath her, and a figure exit it.

The voice of a man, a technician specifically, yelled out in a Russian accent, "OFFICER KIRISHIMA! ARE YOU BEING UP THERE?" 

Doing her best to keep her stomach completely level and unmoved, she yelled a response, in a sort of horse whisper. "Yes, I am being up here! Now you get your technician ass being up here!"

The technician heard her and shrugged, reasoning there was something wrong with the cockpit. He nimbly climbed the side of the armored AMS and peered into the cockpit. "Are you being injured, ma'am?"

"No," she rasped, "I am not being injured! There's…there's…" she swallowed.

The engineer leaned towards her, straining his ears.

"…there's a snake on my stomach…" she whispered to him, feeling embarrassed. For the first time in several months, she blushed, and rather unhappily.

The engineer just stared at her, and started to break out into a laugh. She glared at him. "Quiet! You'll rouse the snake!"

The engineer looked at her and chuckled, then looked at the wrinkled uniform on her stomach. "You should not be worrying, ma'am. There are no…how do you say…venomous snakes in St. Petersburg, I am assuring you!" 

She swallowed nervously, and despite already knowing this, she asked "Really? None?"

"Nyet. None at all." He grabbed her uniform and, in a swift motion, yanked the clothing off her stomach. Despite herself, Kanna let out a scream unusually high-pitched for her.

There was nothing on her stomach. 

This time, the technician barked out a laugh, as he slung the uniform top over his right shoulder. "I tell you, there was a snake there!" yelled Kanna, blushing even worse now.

"Ah, ma'am, you are sure that you aren't imagining it?" he asked skeptically. He then noticed the strange look that was in her eyes, how Kanna's pupils had grown very, very small, and were staring very, very much at him. A good deal of the color had drained out of the brown, masculine face. "Da?"

"IT'S ON YOUR SHOULDER!" she screamed. With reactions much faster then those of the engineer, she whipped out her pistol from the holster on her belt and fired at the small lizard, or rather, the technician.

"NNYEETTT!" 

***

Walker rushed from the elevator to the Ready Room. The four-hour break shift was almost over, and he had overslept slightly, with all the time he had spent reading the letters. With the mission statement in one hand, and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, he marched down the corridor.

"Fourth Team! Assemble and…" he called out as he entered the Ready Room, then paused. 

Sure enough, the projector was set, but the only person sitting in the audience was Dack Bishop, who was preoccupying himself with a small hand-held electronic game that he had smuggled past customs.

"…report?" He looked around. "Dack?"

Dack hit the pause key and looked up. "Yea?"

"Where's everyone else?" _Maybe they'll all come if I wave their paychecks…_

Dack looked around and nodded. "Oh, yea, right. I'm not completely sure, but I heard Mazuri's having a threesome with two local engineers and…" Dack paused, then bit down on his tongue. _Whoops…_

Walker stopped in mid-step, then turned his face towards Dack. His expression was contorted into such an unimaginable shape that it looked unrecognizable. "What did you say?" he asked coldly.

Dack stalled, racking his mind for a safe response. One seemed to come to him. "KANNA SHOT AN TECHNICIAN!"

Walker slid over to Dack and grabbed the younger man by the collars, then lifted him up with surprising ease. "What did you just say?" he asked again, his face still contorted. A darker aura seemed to surround him.

"Uh…Kanna shot an technician in the shoulder…"

"Before that."

"What? I didn't say anything before that! Honest!"

Walker began to slowly increase the tightness of his gloved hands around Dack's neck, by increments. "Tell me…" he said.

Dack gasped. He may have been a coward, but he wasn't a rat. "You know," he gasped out, "I never noticed this, but you've got a very mild English accent…"

"TELL ME!" He closed his grip all the way.

"All right, all right! Last time I saw him, he was walking with two Russian twins, he said he would be out, I swear to God, that's all I know!" For the most part, he was not a rat.

Walker let go of Dack's neck and collar and left him fall to the floor, then began to rub the side of his head. Walker had never received formal training as a 1st Lieutenant, and had no real idea what he was supposed to do now.

As he was thinking, Kanna rushed, in, quickly buttoning her uniform top. Behind her trailed the shorter wall gray-uniformed clad guard from earlier, who had obediently followed her around since the incident earlier. She paused in front of Walker and, trying to seem as formal as possible, saluted the Lieutenant and clicked her heels. Not looking up, Walker waved his hand slightly. She lowered her hand to her side. 

"Whatever it is, sir, I can explain," she said quickly. 

"Tell me, which story is more interesting, where you've been, where Officer Mazuri is now, or that technician you shot." He looked up at the sentry guard. "I take it you're not him?"

"Nyet. I am observer," he said firmly. 

"Seriously, he is," interrupting Kanna. "And I think you really would like to see this." She quickly grabbed the sentry's helmet, catching him off guard, and tugged it free. She then pulled a small chip out of the camera built into the side and inserted it into the projector.

The projector beeped, and an image of Kanna's Aries, paused in mid-flight, was projected onto the screen. After a careful observation through tired eyes, Walker noticed that held by the Aries' arms was an actual Leo mobile suit, under layers of smoke. The projection just fast forward then went in reverse, as Kirishima maniacally pressed the buttons. Walker watched the recording, taken from a much lower angle much farther away, as the Leo exploded, imploded, then exploded, over and over. 

"Whaddya think?" she asked. 

He had to admit, it was actually very clever, though Kanna probably didn't put much thought into at the time, most likely. Using this tactic, the attack achieved a few advantages: first, you removed an enemy from an advantage point they might have defensively. Second, when you lifted them up into the air, a suit like a Leo essentially became crippled, since if you were destroyed, it would plummet back to the ground. The pilot had virtually no options but to surrender. Finally, the strain placed on the enemy mobile suit was so great that the structure easily collapsed, making the kill easier and guaranteed at that height, for the most part. 

Of course, you had to consider that seven metric tons of extra weight put considerable strain on the Aries. He already knew that Kanna's own Aries had been specially modified for close-range combat, sacrificing flight performance for brute power, for her own personal style of fighting. If he had still been an engineer, he would have probably been able to know the exact values of the modifications just by looking at the video, but they seemed to have faded from his mind.

"That's pretty impressive."

Dack nodded. "They should call it the Kirishima Maneuver." 

"And that's another kill for me," she said proudly. "That makes seven, in total."

Dack mumbled something about his position in the 4th Airborne, and Walker nodded. "I have fourteen."

"Can I get my paycheck?"

"No."

"Damn."

"And I have thirteen. Careful sir, or I might beat you," said an intellectual voice from behind. 

Walker and Kanna turned to see Mazuri standing in the doorway of the ready room, smoothing out wrinkles in his uniform. "Should I ask where you've been?" the Lieutenant asked carefully.

Mazuri nodded, then waked over to them. "Yes. Instead of wasting my short-four hour break resting, I had a nice time with two nice young girls…"

Dack grunted loudly, again.

"…at a restaurant, mind you. We drank, talked, then drunk some more." He adjusted his glasses, and when he reached Kanna and Walker, he eyed the taller woman. "You know, if it wasn't for the fact you have two really long white strips of cloth coming down from your hair, you might actually look like a soldier." 

Kanna adjusted her headband, tightened it, then turned back to Mazuri. "Will you still look like a soldier if I beat your head into this floor?"

"Both of you, stop," interrupted Walker. _This isn't insubordinance…the sleep deprivation is getting to them. I can't blame them, really._ "Listen, I've got news that you'll probably like." He took the mission statement out of his pocket and unfolded it. "We're being transferred to Outer Space, effective immediately."

"What?" asked Mazuri, his attitude rapidly changing.

"Outer Space?" asked Kanna indifferently, at the same time.

"Hey, that's great!" said Dack, looking up, half a second after the first two. He reasoned that, since they didn't have hover tanks in Outer Space, he'd be piloting either a mobile suit or a shuttle, stepping up in life. 

Walker nodded, carefully pulled a strand of brown hair from Mazuri's uniform, shot him a glance, and continued. "So, I want all of you to get at least five hours of sleep. We're going to spend about half a week in the Siberia Base first, getting re-supplied. The carrier aircraft won't be arriving for six hours, that should give us a good margin of time."

He handed Kanna the mission statement and nodded. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some rest before I'm asked to give another press conference." He slowly turned around and exited the Ready Room, as Kanna and the others saluted. 

Dack yawned loudly. "Yeaaa…I think I'll get some shut eye, actually," he mumbled and walked off, taking off his uniform cap. 

Mazuri and Kanna stood there, the former looking smug, the later looking at the former. Finally, she yelled it out. 

"You just had sex, didn't you?"

Mazuri blinked and looked at Kanna. "Huh?"

"I know that look," she said, pointing down at him. "Don't try to tell me I don't know that _look_, because I know that _look_. You just had sex with those two technicians."

Mazuri paused and nodded. "If you must know, yes, I did."  Kanna rolled her eyes in such a manner that they looked like they might pop out of the back of her head. "Hey, don't give _me_ that _look_. When I agreed to defect to OZ, I never took a vow of celibacy, understand? And that's what I've been doing since I joined your little team, and it's not very pleasant." 

The taller woman sighed deeply and rubber her face. _This is going to cause a fiasco with the Russians…_She looked at him again. "Baka," she blurted out.

"What?" asked Mazuri. "What did you call me?"

"Mazuri no baka," she blurted out again spun on her heel, then marched off. She walked over to the door of the Ready Room, bent her head over to avoid hitting the top of the frame, then turned back at him. "Mazuri no hentai!" she blurted out one last time, then left. 

Mazuri stood there, trying to comprehend what she might have meant. He actually knew several languages, but they were mostly forms of Swahili and the like. He sighed and turned for the other exit when he came face to the face of the Sentry, who was still standing there.

"What the hell are YOU looking at?" he asked irritably. "Tell me, Mr. Russia, did YOU get any in the past four hours?"

The sentry didn't reply, but regarded Officer Mazuri with a general indifference. "Didn't think so!" Mazuri huffed loudly and stepped past him, leaving the Sentry by himself, standing at attention, with his helmet in his hand.

***

"Attention, Lieutenant Walker!" calmly said a female voice over his headset. "Carrier Aircraft DC-102, destination Siberia, will be passing over in approximately twenty minutes, location, zone T-3, three kilometers south by south east. Launch bay seven is clear. Leave at your own discretion."

Walker ran through the hallways of the St. Petersburg base, his duffle bag under his shoulder. Currently, he was alone, but he had just enough faith in him to convince him that the rest of his team would rather die on the Russian Tundra then remain in the besieged city of St. Petersburg for another eight months till the next AMS carrier passed over. Except for Mazuri, anyway.

"Sir!" cried a somewhat deep female voice. 

Walker turned to see Officer Kirishima jogging behind him, breaking through the crowd of technicians and soldiers, her own duffle bag with her. They met up and Kanna saluted her mid-run. 

Walker returned it quickly, somewhat relieved to see that she was at least in full uniform. "Where are the others?"

"Dack's already at the hangar…seemed pretty anxious to get back into his mobile suit. Mazuri's a bit behind, saying goodbye to those twin technicians he wined and dined," she joked. 

Walker nodded in agreement, then adjusted his cape to get it out of his way. The launch bay where their Aries had been moved was towards the center of the compound, essentially a large rectangular pit in the metal structure with a roof that could be opened or closed appropriately. Kanna smashed her hand into the door control pad, and the hydraulics swished open, and the two quickly squirmed through it. 

As expected, four Aries, the primary hardware of the 4th Airborne, rested on the metal floor. Officer Bishop was at his, making a few last adjustments. He saw them and waved excitedly. "So good actually to pilot something besides a floating armored shoebox!" 

Walker nodded awkwardly and quickly walked over to his MS, then checked his watch. "Where the _hell _is Mazuri?"

Kanna sighed indignantly. "Probably getting some for the trip. I say we castrate him."

Both Bishop and Walker winced at the thought, and the final pilot entered the hangar, running in. Mazuri gasped for air. "Sorry I'm late, really, I had to sign autographs." He rapidly scrambled to his Aries and grabbed the gantry cable, which lifted him up.

Kanna looked at him. "Autographs?"

He nodded. "Yea. It was just a bunch of little kids and their mothers, though," he said quickly as he got into his cockpit. 

Kanna thought about it and shrugged. 

"Come on, people," yelled Walker, as technicians began releasing fuel lines and other equipment from the mobile suits. "We've got ten minutes before the jet passes over."

Dack turned to Walker. "You mean we're not flying all the way to Siberia in our mobile suits?"

Walker shook his head. "It's a four hour trip. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to be crammed into a cockpit for that long. Remember the trip from here to Nairobi?" he asked.

Mazuri let out a moan. "Great. More jetlag."

"Do stop whining," he instructed, as he closed the cockpit hatch. He switched on the headset again and flipped the metal switches on the control surfaces. "Flight control, this is the 4th Airborne. Requesting vector for take off."

A voice crackled from the other end. "4th Airborne, this is Flight Control. We are reading you. Your flight path is being clear. Up is go."

"Thank you," he said, wishing he had learned a little more Russian, to compete with all the English the locals could speak. The turbines to his left and right began to whine loudly as they started up, and he could tell that he was definitely rising. On the three viewscreens that made up the cockpit's 180-degree forward view, the hangar walls began to sink and were eventually replaced with gray skies. Using the zoom lenses, Walker could watch Alliance prisoners being led through the streets by the hundreds. 

"Damn, there's a lot of them," commented Mazuri, on a more serious note. Kanna nodded in agreement, as she flipped a few switches overhead. Most of the damage on her MS had been repaired, though she wouldn't be using it soon. And if she saw another snake, she was probably going to get herself killed at this point. She watched intently as sentry teams were inspected the smoldering pile of debris from the Leo she had destroyed earlier, and extracted a dead body from it of the Alliance pilot. For a brief moment, she found herself almost regretting what she had done, as they zipped the body in an ebony body bag. 

"Kanna! Watch yourself, you're going to stall if you don't speed up!" warned Mazuri over the channel.

Kanna blinked, and nodded. "Thanks," she said briefly and leaned forward on the twin flightsticks. There was a high-pitched whining noise, and the turbines flared up in blue light. She joined the three other Aries in formation, and could see as a black OZ carrier aircraft came into view, only about a kilometer away. The distance display on the Aries HUD rapidly clocked down, and flight instructions on how many degrees to bank to become parallel to the carrier's flight craft were displayed. 

"All right, team, listen up," announced Walker over the standard frequency. "Since this thing isn't landing, there's only one way you can dock with it. First, speed up to about three hundred kilometers an hour once your parallel with it."

Kanna opened the channel. "But we'll overshoot the target!"

"That's the idea. Keep in mind that this isn't like refueling in midair. It's the exact opposite. Once you're about two hundred meters ahead, slowly decrease throttle to about one hundred and fifty clicks. The carrier will give you instructions on what to do from then. I'll go first to demonstrate." He Aries suddenly sped up and veered ahead, past the shuttle. 

_Okay, it's no problem. Just stay focused, and don't crash into the carrier._ In the event of that worse case scenario, Walker knew he wouldn't try to eject. He'd let himself be consumed in the flames rather then face the embarrassment of, as a Lieutenant, crashing into a carrier during a routine loading operation. The HUD read he was 231 meters ahead of the shuttle, and he began to decrease his throttle, pulling back on the sticks. 

His headphones crackled, and the voice of the carrier pilot came through the channel. "Lieutenant! Listen, you're doing fine. Just maintain altitude and direction, until you've come directly beneath the nose of the aircraft. Shortly after that, you should see a large handle on a rail, sort of like the flightstick of a mobile suit. Use your arm to grab it and lock on…autopilot should take care of the rest."

"Affirmative, carrier. Commencing docking." He looked at the viewscreen as the massive gray structure of the carrier came into view, and, as the pilot had described, there was a handhold large enough for the Aries hand to grab. He slowly raised the mechanical right arm and closed his the fingers around it, and a lock was achieved when a metal plate seemed to slide into place. All of his control surfaces turned blue, as the autopilot took over, making precise adjustments too tasking for a normal human being. The Aries slowly slid down the rail and into the large cavity into the carrier's stomach. Inside it was dark, except for a few lights, and the space was large enough for several mobile suits, it seemed, but was empty except for maintenance vehicles. 

He parked the Aries in one of the 'lots', and he could hear the handhold sliding back for the next mobile suit, probably Kanna's he reasoned. He exited his cockpit via the gantry cable and looked around. Eventually, he made his way to what he hoped was the exit hatch and pushed the switch, opening it. It was impossible to tell whether it led to cabin or the outside of the aircraft, the carrier was so massive it was difficult to determine direction. Fortunately, on the other side, there was a well-lit cabin with a few communications officers in black OZ uniforms sitting at their consoles, and green-clad infantrymen and women holding submachine guns.

"Lieutenant Walker?" asked one of the officers who turned towards him. 

He nodded slowly and raised his arm in a salute. All of the officers in the room turned towards him, whether they were standing or sitting, and saluted. As he predicted, Kanna exited the hatch, and also saluted, once she saw what was going on. And once again, she was the taller person in the cabin, and probably in the entire carrier. 

The first officer lowered his hand and nodded. "Sir, we're under orders to bring you and your team to the Siberia Manufacturing Plant, on our way from Moscow to Vladivostock. We have food and supplies for the rest of your crew, and you have a guest waiting for you in the conference room."

_Guest…? _thought Walker, mildly surprised.

_Vladivostock…?_ thought Kanna. _What the hell's that?_

_Conference room…?_ Thought Dack as he entered the cabin through the hatch, blinking. _This sure is one huge carrier. I wonder if they have a pool. _

"Uh, thank you," he said appreciatively. He was about to ask whom it was when one of the communications officers stood up and gestured Walker to the doorway. She led him to a stairwell and to the conference room wordlessly.  

Walker plodded methodically after her, and they eventually reached another door, upon which the communications officer stood to the side and nodded at him. He reached forward and opened the door, not feeling particularly confident about it. 

The room struck him as particularly strange at first, until he remembered it was supposed to be a conference room. Dominating the chamber as a long rectangular table, shining obsidian, with empty chairs line up along it. At the end opposite to Walker sat a figure, the back of his chair facing the exit of the room, tapping a pipe. 

"Hello again, Lieutenant," the voice said calmly.

"Captain Mikhail Dzugasia…" said Walker slowly, smiling tightly. 

The man turned his chair around to reveal the familiar rugged features and bushy mustachio. "You thought you were rid of me, didn't you?" he asked humorlessly, radiating intelligence. 

Walker approached the table and nodded. "As a matter of fact, yes, I did."

Captain Dzugasia raised an arm invitingly. "Relax, Christopher. Sit down, and have some vodka and caviar," he said warmly. Despite himself, Walker had difficulty disobeying the voice of higher command, and subconsciously found himself pulling up a chair near the end of the table and sitting down in it. He looked nauseatingly into the small bowl of black fish eggs. 

"Go ahead, try some," encouraged Dzugasia. "It tastes far better then you'd think it would."

Walker shook his head firmly. "I'll pass, sir."

"It's Russian Sturgeon, and costs about twelve hundred of your British Pounds for a kilo."

Walker just stared at him and nodded slowly, grabbed a spoonful of the black stuff and jammed it into his mouth.  The substance was notoriously expensive, considering it was basically just fish eggs. 

But one thing was for sure. He did _not _like Russian caviar. And he had never tasted anything that bad before, with the possible exception of when he scrapped the top of his mouth off in a piloting accident. 

Walker's face contorted in such an expression it appeared to Dzugasia that he might have an aneurysm, but he refused to spit it out. Comrade Mikhail sighed and nodded. "I didn't think you would like it, I just wanted to see your reaction," he admitted. He passed Walker the bottle of Russian vodka. At first, Walker considered spitting the substance out into the vodka but instead took a deep gulp and washed it down his throat. He set the bottle on the table and stuck his tongue out, bleakly. 

"Is there a particular reason you've been following me, sir?" he asked coarsely.

The Captain chuckled again and reached forward to Walker. "I'll need your international passport."

Walker frowned, though at first he didn't think he could frown anymore, and reached into a pocket. He produced a small black book with the yellow OZ insignia on it, and handed it to Dzugasia. "Are you reissuing it?" he asked. 

"No, you'll get it back." Dzugasia opened it up to see a sober photograph of Walker, as well as some information on him, then flipped onto one of the small pages adorned with international registry stamps. He finally reached the one with the stamp permitting Walker to enter Russia, quickly took out a pen and jotted something underneath it, then handed it back to Walker. 

"It is unfortunate," he commented "That you will not be in Moscow for the Workers' Day Parade," he said.

Walker nodded. "Of course, May 1st. I almost forgot about that completely. I was looking forward to it." That wasn't necessarily a lie, but he was fairly indifferent to the idea of marching through the streets of Moscow in his mobile suit, for no practical reason, in a military parade. 

"It celebrates the triumph of the proletarian," muttered Dzugasia calmly, as though reading Walker's mind.

"Of course, sir." _How on Earth does he do that?_ Walker stood up from the table slowly and excused himself. 

"I wish you luck in the Space Colonies," commented Dzugasia one last time as he left.

"Thank you, sir. Perhaps I will need it."

***

In the carrier's small if comfortable lounge, Kanna, Mazuri, and Dack lay sprawled out on couches, talking casually. 

"I still go by my centimeter theory," said Dack resolutely. "Take your age, the amount of centimeters, then add a few, give or take."

Kanna shook her head. "I don't claim to be an expert in this field, but I know enough." She extended her right hand and extended the thumb and index finger so that they formed an 'L' shape. "Theoretically, it's _supposed _to be _that_ long," she said, referring to the diagonal from the tip of her thumb to the tip of the index finger. 

Dack and Mazuri blinked in unison, and extended their own fingers into 'L' shapes, trying to register that. 

"Uh…yea, sure, Kanna," said Dack blankly. 

"Yes, I guess that could hold out, theoretically," mumbled Mazuri.

Kanna put her hands behind her head. "'Now, 'course you guys are pretty small…"

"Hey!"

"What are you three talking about?" asked a new voice.

The three turned to the door, Dack almost having to turn his head all the way around like an owl thanks to where he sat, and a nervous tension in the room formed as was little remained of the serious, unnatural military façade vanished. Walker stood in the doorway, leaning to his left, without his cap or cape. 

"Nothing, sir!" rambled Kanna quickly. "We were just talking."

Walker shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with that. I'm sorry if I startled you," he said. His voice had changed to them, it was a slightly lower pitched, not as formal or precise sounding. He also sounded more earnest and human. He sat down in a couch and reached into one of his pockets. "Relax. I have something I want to give all of you that you'll like."

With exaggerated caution, he reached into one of his uniform pockets, and pulled out a few envelopes. The eyes of the three other members of the 4th Airborne darted towards them with a strange fascination and Kanna cried out.

"PAYDIRT!"

Almost immediately, they tackled Walker and randomly grabbed for their envelopes. "Get off me!" he yelled angrily.

"Sorry sir!" yelled Mazuri as he and the others tore open their envelopes and looked inside. Walker sighed as he lay back in the couch and rested his head on the armrest. 

Kanna held her check up against the overhead lights and looked at it, then laughed, making strange gestures with his hand. "Yehaa!" 

Mazuri and Bishop were slightly less enthusiastic. "This is it?" they both asked, almost in unison. 

To Walker's amusement, Kanna did a little dance around the room happily, then took a gander at the number at Mazuri's check. "Wow…you guys got screwed."

"OZ must be biased against men," muttered Bishop, crushing the slip of paper with his hand, before hastily smoothing it out again.

"I would beg to differ," commented Walker calmly as he walked past, patting an unhappy Dack on the shoulder. "Keep in mind that your compensation from OZ is both a combination of service hours, transfers, special assignments, and bounty on confirmed kills."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, confused.

"Don't worry about it." Walker bent over and peered out of a small port-window. "I suggest that you enjoy your trip. We should arrive in Siberia in around eight hours. Mazuri, brace yourself for the jetlag."

To Reviewer **CT:**

Thanks for the review! Uh, I suppose you can review each chapter separately if you like, or you can tell me what you think via E-mail. I'm Mark_Synthesis@yahoo.co.uk 

Anyway, I included some ranks in OZ from what I've seen in Gundam Wing. The guys at www.Gundamproject.com explain it very well. In a nutshell, the 'OZ' rank comes form rank in the Alliance Special Mobile Suit Corps, as well as service in the Romefeller Foundation (since they originally created OZ). The rank can be determined by something as simple as the color of an OZ soldier's uniform: Blue represents the color of Commander in Chief ('Tokusa', literally 'Special Commander', hence, Treize Khushrenada), Red represents high-ranking OZ 'Special Officer' ('Tokui', Such as Zechs or Une). The Black uniforms that seem most common represent the 'middle-class' officers, which vary designate the 'Tokushi' (Special Soldier), which in Alliance ranks anywhere from an Instructor (Noin) to a 1st Lieutenant (Walker). 

Each of these ranks has a court rank given by the Romefeller Foundation. Example being that Treize is a Duke, and Walker is technically 'Sir Christopher Walker', a knight. 

A fourth rank, depicted by the few scenes in which OZ officers are seen wearing Green uniforms with black pants has no specific name, though I have dubbed them 'tokusoldat, 'soldat' being German for 'troop', and my native tongue. These soldiers don't qualify to pilot mobile suits, either because they are still in the early stages of the training, or because they prefer to join the Infantry ranks. Kanna used to be one of them.

Incidentally, Comrade Mikhail IS modeled after Joseph Stalin, incase there was any confusion. It's an inside joke, not something that's supposed to be stereotypical of the Russians. 

Also, on one final note, to everyone who might be reading, 'going critical' is basically when a mobile suit is destroyed in such a way it explodes. This is basically the _only _way that Mobile Suits seem to explode in Gundam Wing, but in later series in the Gundam Universe, the mobile suits frequently simply come to a stop or smoke a bit. I reason that mobile suits only explode when you puncture their internal reactors.__

 Finally, I apologize for how slowly this is going. It gets better, I promise! ^^;;


	9. The Weightlessness

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 9_**

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gundam Wing or Sakura Wars, which I believe to be property of Bandai and ADV Films respectively. I did, however, create Mazuri and Bishop._

"Hold up, I need to get something from supply."

Kanna was walking next to Walker, followed by Dack and Mazuri, through the metal corridors of the Siberia Manufacturing Plant, having just arrived. At first, it was somewhat unusual: for the first occasion in some time, they were surrounded by fellow black-clad OZ soldiers. A majority of them were not Siberia locals, like the 4th Airborne, and were roaming in small groups through the facility. The three shorter men wore black OZ uniforms, Walker had his cape, and Kanna wore her usual tank top

Walker turned his head slightly. "Excuse me?"                           

With a quick maneuver and a little footwork, the massive Amazon shifted herself in front Walker, and continued walking backwards, so she could face him. "I heard there was a supply depot here. I need to pick up some stuff"

"Probably more food," said Dack slyly to Mazuri, standing to his right. The Kenyan native smirked briefly, causing his gold-framed glasses to slip down his nose.

Kanna, who had proven to have infallible hearing in the past, perceived them almost immediately and shot them warning stares (warning that she would break their necks if they didn't shut up), and turned back to Walker. "Would you mind, sir?" 

"Oh, go head," said Walker distantly, facing her again. 

She just stared at him. It might have just been her, but the Lieutenant's brown eyeballs seemed to settle deeper into their sockets, and his eyelids seemed more wrinkled and tired. She nodded slowly, then began to turn around. "Thank you, sir."

"Wait." Walker reached into the holster under his cape and, using only the index and middle fingers of his right hand, carefully pulled his pistol out by the put, and held it towards her. "Would you mind getting some more magazines for this? I used the rest of them back in St. Petersburg." 

"No problem." She took the pistol, and dropped it into the duffle bag she was carrying in his right arm. She quickly darted off with a few leaps down the corridor. 

Walker called out to her "Make sure to catch up!" 

"I still say she's just going for more food," insisted Dack. "I mean, the woman can eat and eat and eat…she's like a bottomless pit…" 

Walker turned to him. "You mean a singularity."

"A what?"

"Bottomless pits don't exist," he said firmly. "The closest thing is a singularity."

"Yea," said Mazuri, who actually had a good deal of useless knowledge on Quantum Physics. "A singularity is a space that can store more then its actually size. Basically, the ultimate travel bag. Or our dear friend Kanna, over there." 

Walker nodded, though Mazuri continued, determined to prove his intellect. "Well, when you think about it, it makes sense. She's a big girl, and she needs a lot of food. I mean, she weighs, what, eighty, ninety kilograms? She probably needs a lot of food to keep that sort of physique. More then we three do, anyway."

Meanwhile, as Mazuri endlessly lectured, Kanna eventually found the counter for OZ Supply Depot, which was located in a crowded chamber she referred to as _chitaitsuuzoku_, or 'commons area'. She slowed down to normal walking pace, and prepared to make her way through the chamber, densely filled with black and green uniforms of OZ officers and infantry, respectively. This prove to be unnecessary, however, and as soon as she entered the chamber, all eyes seemed to turn on her. 

She could see very well over everyone else's' heads, and found herself wondering if this was what it was like to be an American in a subway full of the typically shorter people of her own culture, and swallowed. "Uh, _sumimasen_," she said slowly, which was also necessary. The crowd began to part, making her feel not like an American but like Moses parting the Red Sea. Eventually, she made her way to the Supply Counter, people restarting their conversation and business once they were behind her, and she turned her attention to the short woman sitting behind the counter, who was dressed in a simple black OZ-noncommissioned uniform.

The clerk looked up from her magazine and found herself staring into the letters of 'OZ' imprinted into Kirishima's silver belt-buckle. She gulped and Kanna knelt down so that the clerk might crane her neck far enough to make eye contact with her. "Can I help you?" 

She nodded. "Actually, you can. I need a four new uniform sets and some magazines for this." She pulled the pistol out of the duffle bag and whacked it against the counter. 

The clerk looked at the pistol, something she was actually very familiar with, and took it to inspect the serial number on the barrel. "Standard issue semiautomatic," she commented. "Everyone in OZ has one. Hell, even I have one," she admitted, and gestured to the holster around her waist. The Clerk then reached down for a box under her counter and pulled out four black magazines, then lay them on the counter like poker cards. "Now, I'll need to see your tag. Regulations." 

As trained, the Clerk kept her hand over the magazines for the time being, thought something told her that the infantrywoman or officer in front of her could probably obtain them from her forcefully, not to mention remove her arm from the socket. However, Kanna had no intention over starting a fight over something so trivial (that was for when she had consumed at least eight beers in a bar, and was tired of not finding anyone who could drink her under the table). She nodded and reached into her gray tank top and pulled out her identification tags, on a chain around her neck. She loosened the chain and gave the Clerk the tags, who inserted them into a scanner on next to her computer. The scanner was designed to read the small microchip inserted into every tag, and beeped, confirming that Kanna was actually Kanna Kirishima, OZ Officer, of the 4th Airborne, E Company. 

"All right…" she said, and slowly pushed the magazines and pistols across the counter towards Kanna, who took them. "What was that second thing you needed?"

"Four uniform sets." She pointed at the screen. "I'm an Officer."

_Do they make uniforms in her size?_ The Clerk was very skeptical about it. "Do you know your measurements?" 

Kanna sighed deeply, then rubber her face with a partially-gloved hand. _This_, with the possible exception of snakes, was the part of her job she hated the most. She had been through the same uniform-ordering scenario twice before, and they had probably been the most bothersome incidents in her career as a soldier in OZ. It was all due to the fact that she stood over thirty centimeters taller then the average OZ soldier, who was between seventeen and twenty-four, and short by nature. The first incident had been when she first joined the Infantry for training. She had requested six green and white uniforms from the Supply Department, and apparently OZ had to subcontract a _tailor _to sew three Extra-Extra Large uniforms, since she was kept waiting for three _months_, with nothing to wear but several undersized undershirts, which she had brought originally to serve as maybe bandages or kerchiefs for her nose. It wasn't the pants that were the problem as much as it was the uniform tops, which were impossible to get in her size. When she was transferred to the Special Mobile Suit Corps, it had just gotten worse, since the average female mobile suit pilot was, for obvious reasons, shorter then the average infantrywoman, and Kirishima had developed notably since she joined OZ at sixteen half a year ago, and she found herself waiting even long for four black uniform sets to replace her six green ones that she had wore for less then two months after they first arrived. With every advantage comes a disadvantage, and height was no exception. Over time, she eventually acquired several square meters of stretchy thermal material that she sewed into several silvery tank tops, which, along with her notorious height, became a sort of calling card for her. 

She sighed. No matter what happened, she would have to go through this again and again. And this time, it was thanks to her moronic teammate Dack Bishop who was responsible, and who had suggested she was her sweat-stained Officer uniforms that had served her so well over the past year, though some of them were tight to the point where she just wore them around her waist most of the time. Kanna's other flaw was that she had no knowledge of how to wash anything, or deal with laundry, and her duffle bag's contents consisted mostly of a few personal belongings and four black uniform tops dotted with golf ball-size holes where bleach had ate through the fabric. 

_Why the hell do they make it so strong, anyway? I mean, its not like our clothes are coated with lead. _"Uh…" she said aloud finally, thinking about it. "Ninety four, eight two, ninety eight." 

The Clerk stopped scratching away with her pen on the small notepad she had been recording the information on and looked up. _Way_ up. "You're kidding me…centimeters?"

Still rubbing her face, a way to relieve frustration, she nodded. "Well, no one uses the Imperial Units anymore, now do we?"

The clerk didn't respond, but stuck the small note onto a rack, along with several other yellow ones, and nodded. "All right. We'll get you your uniform when…well, when it comes," she said indifferently, then turned her head towards several packets of papers from racks. "What are those?" 

_I'm going to have a hell of a time getting a spacesuit…_

***

"Lieutenant Walker?" asked a voice. 

Walker turned his back. Behind him, a man with light brown hair and a freckles stood, dressed in an OZ uniform. By the insignia on his chest, Walker recognized that, whoever it was, he ranked higher then himself. 

"Yes, sir?" he asked. 

"Good, I'm glad your team arrived." He sidestepped slightly and peered forward. "Is this your entire team?"

"No, actually," said Mazuri, speaking out in his most polite tone of voice. "We have one last pilot, whom will be joining us shortly."

The officer nodded and approached Walker. "I am Jacob Watkins, Director of the Siberia Plant." He looked directly at Walker with his own small, narrow eyes. "I heard that you were an Engineer at Corsica."

"A few years ago, I was, anyway." He rubbed his sleeve. "Before my unexpected passing." 

Watkins nodded. "So I heard. Now, if you'll come with me, I can show you two your new inventory. Or would you prefer to wait for your missing pilot?"

"No need. The missing pilot is here!"

The four men turned to see Kanna running up to them quickly, before she came to a stop directly in front of Dack Bishop. "Sorry I'm late." She stood up to her full height, towering over her four companions, and nodded. 

"I assume that the entire 4th Interstellar Team is here?" asked Watkins finally. 

"Interstellar team?" echoed Bishop.

"Your designation has been changed. You will no longer be using Aries, since you're assigned to duty in the Colonies," he commented indifferently before turning around and walking away.

"Oh." Walker and the others stared at him for a moment and followed in suit.

***

One by one, the rows of the lights in the hangars lit up, revealing its contents. Dack let out a long whistle. "Wow, looks like they bought the full options package here, eh?"

"It would certainly seem so," commented Mazuri. "The floors are so clean…I can see my reflection in them." He rubbed Kanna's arm. "Kanna, look at the floors."

Kanna looked down at her reflection. "I really need to cut my hair," she commented.

"The Siberia Plant was originally established by the Alliance in AC One-Seven-Two, for the construction of space-capable Leos. The plant's location allows for convenient launches, and it is directly along the vertical axis of Lagrange Point One. After _Daybreak_, the plant was seized by Russian authorities and turned over to OZ as a good will gesture. Since then, it's been completely rebuilt from the ground up, and has been used in the construction of OZ Next Generation of mobile suits." Watkins approached a door and punched in a combination into the keypad. "It's an expensive investment, but Mr. Treize has been particularly interested in establishing relations with the Colonies, as well as defeating the rest of the Alliance Space Forces.."

He finished punching in the combination and the hangar doors began to slide apart. They opened up into an even larger chamber. As Walker's eyes focused, it became evident that it was an industrial processing plant of some sort. On the rollout conveyor were three massive metal containers, each about twenty meters tall. 

"And this," explained Dir Watkins, "Is the equipment that will be replacing your older Aries."

The lights in the roll-out bay lit up, and the three metal cases came into clear view. However, what was for more interesting, were the three jet black humanoid constructs locked into the cases.

"Holy shit…" commented Kana loudly, her voice echoing through the chamber, once she found it.

OZ-12SMS, better known by the creature of the Zodiac assigned to it, the 'Taurus'. Ironically, the factory-fresh mobile suits looked nothing like bulls, but like black manta rays. They were in a slightly compressed position, locked tightly into their metal frames, reminding everyone in the 4th Interstellar of Christmas gifts. Except for Walker, who, despite being raised in England, had never really celebrated the holiday.

"Indeed," repeated Walker. "Holy shit."

"The Taurus Space Mobile Suit is the first of OZ's Next Generation of MS," explained Watkins, with a sort of pride. "It's probably the most powerful MS ever to be mass produced. We've already assembled around two hundred units for use in Outer Space."

Watkins turned his head towards a figure standing in the shadow of the first Taurus. "Engineer Masser!" he yelled out. "Mr. Masser, could you please come over here?"

The figure looked up from the Taurus and nodded, running out of the shadows. He was an average-looking man, not particularly tall but sturdily built, perhaps a year younger then Walker. He was clad in a gray work-tunic, and was wiping his hands with a stained cloth. 

"Yes, Mr. Watkins?" he asked when he reached the Director.

"This is probably our finest Eingeer, Masser," Watkins said, putting a hand on the Engineer's shoulder. "He's young, but exceptionally competent. I'll leave it to him to explain the workings of your new mobile suits." And with that, Watkins turned and left, as though he had other business to attend to.

Masser nodded and turned to Kanna, Mazuri, and Dack. "Uh…well…" he began nervously. "These are the Taurus Space Mobile Suits. They're acting as a replacement to our normal Space Leos. This models are unarmed, but the standard will be a powerful beam rifle and an even more powerful beam cannon. The rifle should be able to destroy a Leo in a single well-place shot, while we're hoping that the beam cannon will be able to cripple one of those new mobile suits, a Gundam."

Mazuri spoke up. "Exactly how do you plan to get these things into Outer Space?"

"Uh…we're going to take them up in these specially-designed shuttles. With the helps of the Colonists, OZ has been constructing this massive station in space called 'Barge'. The Taurus's will be sent up there, and then sent to the Space Colonies."

"Can we take a look at them?" asked Dack, anxiously.

Masser nodded and took out a small remote from his pocket. "Sure, go ahead. They're yours now." He fingered one of the buttons and the metal cases around the SMS unlocked and slid downwards, exposing the exterior armor plating. The three dashed off to the three mobile suits, leaving Walker alone with Masser.

"Uh, Lieutenant Walker?" asked Masser reluctantly.

"Yes?" 

"You…you were at Corsica, an Engineer, yes?"

Walker turned to Masser. "Used to, anyway."

Masser nodded in return. "I was at the Institute as well. I read some of your works, _Technical Commentaries on the Aries_, before I graduated."

Walker found himself rubbing his chin. "I wrote a book?" he asked.

"Well…it was more of a manual or a pamphlet, actually…"

"Then how come I don't remember?" he asked, a little too loud. He _didn't _remember having written a book, much less one called _Technical Commentaries on the Aries_. He must have been sixteen or so at the time…right?

Masser watched him for a moment then coughed nervously. "Anyway, sir, yours is the one in the front," he said, pointing to the Taurus, changing the subject.

"Oh, I see," he mumbled, his thoughts returning to the task at hand. "Thanks."

Masser nodded and walked away. Walker himself stepped towards the front Aries. It towered over him like a black monolith. Finally, he yelled out, "Bishop, get out of my machine!"

From the open cockpit, Dack looked down at the now tiny Walker. "Huh?"

"That's my machine, so get out of it. You can use it once you surpass the rank of Lieutenant."

From above, Dack frowned. "Are you positive?" 

"Just start it up and see for yourself."

Dack shrugged and looked around for a start-up switch, but couldn't find one. It soon dawned to him that there _were_ no switches in the Aries…besides the two flightsticks and a few external gauges, everything was electronic, unlike on the Aries. He pressed his finger against a dim red surface which read 'STARTUP' in bold letters. 

Nothing happened. 

He tried again, then began striking his fist against it repeatedly, before Walker yelled out again. "Stop doing that! It's touch-sensitive, its only designed to respond to _my _fingerprints." He shook his head. "Call it an anti-theft system."

"Is that so?" muttered Dack, before exiting the cockpit and climbing down the side of the metal case. "Then where's mine?" 

"No idea," admitted Walker promptly as he passed Dack on the way up. He made his way into the cockpit and sat down in it, then pressed his right index finger against the startup key.

The Taurus began to hum faintly, and the cockpit lights lit up, in a bright red, a warning that the Taurus couldn't move in the state it was in. Despite himself, Walker was actually quite impressed. "This is state-of-the-art equipment," he commented. "Very impressive."

"Yes, it is," commented Masser from below. "There's also one last thing you should know about…they call it the mobile doll system…"

"Mobile doll?" asked Kanna, from her own cockpit. "What the hell is that?"

Masser scratched the back of his head. "I'm not completely sure. Supposedly, it's sort of an artificial intelligence installed on all Taurus. It was developed by Romefeller technicians."

"Well, that's rather assuring," mumbled Dack sarcastically.

"You mean like an autopilot?" asked Mazuri. 

"Well, yes and no…it's a combination of that and an automated battle-computer. It takes a computer's advantage of having superior processing speed then the human brain, but it's not particularly clever or original."

Walker snorted in his cockpit. "An AI piloting a mobile suit? Mr. Treize is going to hate that…it completely goes against his morals of combat."

"Well, it's far from making humans like us obsolete," commented Kanna. "I doubt some machine can be a good MS pilot just because its fast."

Masser nodded in agreement. "Well, what can you do? It's up to the higher-ups in Romefeller. Anyway, I'll let you three get acquainted with your mobile suits." He took out the clipboard under his arm and made a few markings on it. "Tell me if there's anything else you need," he informed then, then turned away.

Dack reached out and grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Wait."

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Where's?" he asked, then lowered his voice. "Where's my mobile suit?"

Masser mentally frowned and checked his clipboard. "Well…there appears to be some sort of misunderstanding. Your team, formerly the 4th Airborne, is listed to have had an inventory of four Aries mobile suits, but…"

"But what?"

"Well, I only have three pilots listed here: Lieutenant Christopher Walker, Officer-Corporal Kanna Kirishima, and Officer A. Mazuri." _What does the 'A' stand for?_

"WHAT?" yelled Dack, loudly enough to be heard by his teammates, before grabbing the clipboard. 

"Yes…you've been listed under 'support personnel', Officer Bishop," explained Masser, pointing at the line of type.

"What? What? Oh, that's just…" he began muttering, and punched his fist against the metal blast door. He stopped for a moment and whimpered, then grabbed his right hand and howled out in pain. 

Masser took the opportunity to take back his clipboard. "You'll have to speak to your commanding officer about that, I'm afraid."

"…shit! That hurt! My hand! That freakin' hurt!" Dack blew on his hand, as though it might make it better. 

***

"Lyn? Lyn, wake up!" 

Lyn stirred awake from her bunk, her eyes slowly opening. The faint taste of the thick medicine she had taken earlier due to the gravity (or lack of which), was still on her mouth, and she suppressed the urge to vomit. She wiped her face with the hand of her shirt and looked around her bunk. 

A familiar face, a blond woman with short hair about her own age, but dressed in a black OZ uniform, was standing at her bunk.

"Lyn, wake up, I think you'll want to see this."

"Uh…what is it, Sidney?" she asked, reluctantly, sitting up. She was dressed in a white nightshirt and absurdly baggy pants. Sidney had been on barge since the beginning of its construction, and no longer experienced the brief pangs of gravitational-orbit sickness, and had gotten used to the smell of recycled air.

"Look at this," she said, grinning, and handed a folded piece of paper to Lyn to read.

Lyn sighed and buried her head in her pillow. "I don't want to read it. You read it."

Sidney looked at her fellow communications officer and sniffed indignantly. "Fine." She unfolded the piece of paper and cleared her throat. It wasn't printed in English or any other commonly used language, rather, it printed in Shorthand, a language used specifically by the Communications Officers of OZ. The instructions themselves were the assignments given to Sidney and Lyn for the week. It ran:

**REPORT 5.04.195 L2-X18999 barton agree weapon inspect keep comnec hour intva report**

**REPORT 5.06.195 romefeller wish ambassador une establish relate L3-X23566**

**REPORT 5.08.195 BARGE mst 2,4,7 inst due arrive provide subcom code uprank waroff see comoffs furref **

**REPORT 5.12.195 BARGE comch set doubleplusbad navifreq fix 5.08.195 7:30/8:00 subdiagnos uprank comsup**

After she cleared her throat, Sidney began reading it in common English, translating as she went. "Assignment report from May 4th, AC 195, in colony L2-X18999, the Barton Foundation agreed to have weapons inspectors visit the Colony. Keep a communication connection established for them to report at one-hour intervals. Assignment report from May 6th, AC 195, the Romfeller Foundation wishes to send Ambassador Colonel Une to establish relations with colony L3-X23566…"

"Uhggg…" mumbled Lyn from her pillow. "More busy work, just like yesterday. Great. What part of that did you think I wanted to hear?"

 "This part…Assignment report for May 8th, on Barge, the 2nd, 4th, and 7th mobile suit teams are due to arrive. We are to provide them with subspace communication codes to all of the commanding combat-officers, see communications offices for further reference."

Lyn lifted her head. "Huh? Let me see that…" she mumbled, and took the piece of paper from Sidney. Lyn was still learning shorthand, and had difficult interpreting the difference between 'off' and 'offs', or 'officers' and 'offices'. She managed to sit herself up in her bunk and blinked her eyes.

"Oh, come on," muttered Sidney. "I know you're still not feeling _that _bad. You're so damn sensitive."

"Shut up!" barked Lyn, as she continued deciphering the letter. Finally, she put it down on the surface of her bunk and slowly crept out of it. _Walker's going to be here on the eighth…It's been a long time…_

***

Kanna found her commanding officer muddling over some books that, for the life of her, she couldn't find particularly interesting. It was in a library with one two-centimeter thick Plexiglas window that was obscured by the giant yellowish mono-eye of a Taurus.

Walker himself was standing at the bookshelf, running his fingers long the book spines, as though trying to write something. 

"Sir?" she asked finally, causing him to turn and look at her. 

Kanna stood there at attention, holding a clipboard under her left arm. "Yes?" he finally asked, as though stirring awake from a deep sleep.

"We're…we're taking measurements for our new vacuum-suits. I've already gotten Bishop's and Mazuri's, I just need yours now."

He stepped away from the bookshelf and nodded. "Oh, well…" he mumbled incoherently as Kanna showed him the clipboard. He took a small pen from his pocket and jotted down a few numbers. "Nothing smaller than that," he asked.  "By the way, do you have my…?"

Kanna blinked. "Oh, yes, your pistol. Sorry, I forgot all about that." 

"Of course, sir."

"Anyway, have you been able to find one?" he asked, looking up from the clipboard.

_A life? Yes, thank you,_ _I have…_"Find a what, sir?"

"A normal suit that will fit you."

Kanna sighed. "It seems like I need to get the norm suit tailor-made. I'm starting to think I might be the biggest person ever to go into Outer Space," she joked. "Or, at least, the biggest woman."

"That's not a distinct impossibility," commented Walker, handing her back the clipboard. He turned around and returned to the bookshelf, checking individual books.

Finally, she asked. "What are you looking for, sir?"

"Excuse me?" he asked, in mock innocence. 

"You're looking for something, sir," she said with a smile. "It's like me whenever I go shopping for clothes that fit."

Walker smiled slightly and nodded. "Did you know that, a few years ago, before you joined OZ, I was working as an Engineer in Corsica?" 

"I had no idea, sir." She was about to say _That would explain why you sound the way you do_ but refrained from doing so at the last moment.

"Well, I was. If memory serves, I published a few pamphlets on mobile suits, the last being _Technical Commentaries on the Aries_."

"You're an author?" asked Kanna, walking right behind him and looking over his head. 

"Not an author, really," he admitted. "More of just a writer."

"What's the difference?" 

"A author makes money."

Kanna chuckled a bit under her breath, but only barely. Walker resumed inspecting the shelves, then finally pulled out a small, black book from the shelf and inspected it. On the cover was, unsurprisingly, _Technical Commentaries on the Aries_, with his name in small bold letters beneath it. 

"Is that it?" asked Kanna, looking over the top of Walker's head again.

"I imagine so. It has my name on it. Of course…" he mumbled as he opened it. The book consisted of page after page of small text, seperated by the occasional hand-drawn schematic of an Aries as a diagram. "…there's always the fact that…"

"What?"

Walker closed the book and smiled, then began to laugh. Kanna stepped back, unsure of what to make of this, and forced herself to laugh along with him, abiet nervously. 

Finally, the Lieutenant stopped laughing as quickly as he started and stared at the book. "…the fact that I can't ever remember writing a book like this. Or any book for that matter."

Kanna, who was delayed in getting herself to stop laughing, stopped and said, in an unusual small voice, "You mean, you forgot about it?"

"I suppose I have." He inserted the book back into its place on the shelf, and barried his hands in his pockets. "I was always under the impression I had a near photographic memory, a skill I acquired as an engineer…"

Kanna mentally frowned and snapped her fingers. "Sir, describe Mazuri's glasses," she asked quickly.

Walker's response was equally fast. "They have gold frames, and the left lens has a scratch on it."

"What was Masser wearing?" 

"A gray tunic with a light brown neckerchief." 

Kanna thought for a moment. "What am _I _wearing?"

"That's easy: black-gray tanktop, white uniform pants, and an OZ belt. You've got a holster for your pistol on the right side of the belt. You always wear that."

Kanna shrugged. "Good enough," she admitted. "You're memory seems to be fine."

"I'm not worried about that aspect of my memory," he said grimly. "My short term memory is fine. It's my long term memory that I think is deteriorating."

Kanna frowned. "What do you mean, by 'long term'?"

"Like memories I had before I joined OZ."

There was a pause. Kanna considered bringing up where she had been before her career with OZ, but refrained from doing so. Finally, he broke the silence. "So, have you tried out the new Taurus suits?"

She shook her head. "Nah, but Mazuri and Dack are both hitting the zero-gee simulators downstairs." 

"Simulators?"

"Uh…yea, they're basically these seats in a magnetic chamber that are modeled after the ones in all standard cockpits, complete with two flightsticks. The pilots are plugged into VR and float around, trying not to bump into each other." Kanna gestured with her hands as an example.

"Really?" he asked. When he had been at Lake Victoria, they had used a much cruder system to simulate the absence of gravity: trainees would be inserted into a chamber, which would be hurled down a shaft going from the surface to the upper mantle, at a speed matching falling velocity. Eventually, the gravitational pull would be neutralized, and they would float around. Of course, thanks to the length of the shaft, the longest the simulator courses could individually last was a few minutes. "Sounds high-tech," he commented. 

"Yea, I heard it was a real piece of work."

***

With themselves strapped into the cockpit-like simulator seats, and visual virtual-reality headsets over their eyes, A. Mazuri and Dack Bishop floated around, along with almost a dozen other officers and recruits, in a spherical chamber over ten meters in diameter, which had walls line with electro-magnets. Those magnets radiated a field, which would automatically repulse or 'push' the magnetic simulator units away, and since these magnets lined all of the walls of the chamber, an equal force of push came from all directions, allowing the subjects to use small air jets on the simulator units to maneuver themselves. This entire system had been developed to train the pilots for Space-Leos, and later, Taurus pilots, and the facility's two chambers had only been installed recently. 

Mazuri had already used the system in the past, during his Leo training, though he had never actually operated in Outer Space. On the other hand, Dack had no prior experience, and very little ideal of what he was doing. 

"Whoa…whoa…!" he yelped as he unit broke into an erratic spin. The simulation was based on a free-for-all, with several multicolored Taurus suits fighting against each other with beam rifles. "Stop shooting at me!"

Within the simulator, Mazuri quickly maneuvered around. Control was overly-simplified compared to the old Leos, much less what the real Taurus' were probably capable of, but the idea of the simulation was to become use to maneuvering in space, as well as an example of what it would be like fighting in such an environment with no obstacles and almost unrestricted movement. 

"Mazuri!" whined Dack. "I know that's you in the blue Taurus! Stop picking on me! Go shoot someone else!" yelled Dack, as his left arm jerk and he pulled it away from the flightstick, as it was shot off in virtual reality. Without knowing it, he approached too close to another simulator unit, and they hit back to back with a jolt, both in reality and virtual reality.

"Arg! Watch it, kid!" the other pilot hissed. She attempted to turn her head to face him, but couldn't.

"Sorry, sorry!" muttered Dack. "Keep your shirt on, I'm moving…" as he tried to maneuver with the right flightstick

In virtual realit, Mazuri's mobile suit 'fell' directly in front of the two stalled MS, and he grinned, then pulled the trigger on his right flightstick. There was a loud buzzing noise in the ears of both Dack and his newfound companion, and both of their visual units were dominated by new screens as the ripped them off.

The overseer, watching the action from a shielded chamber with a thick window, inspected the screen and nodded. "Congratulations, Bishop and Carter. You're both dead."

"It's all his fault!" yelled Carter angrily, before she spun her mobile suit around and was able to kick Dack in the face. 

"Ow! Hey, watch it!"

"Mazuri is now in first place, with six kills," explained the overseer into his microphone before turning it off and returning to his previous activity of reading magazines. "Simulation will terminate in five minutes."

Dack mumbled under his breath as he slowly maneuvered his unit to the exit and unbuckled the restraint harnesses, causing him to almost immediately slip from the unit and towards the hatch with a loud thumping noise. With his free hand, he twisted a protrusion from the door causing it to open, and he fell through. 

"Ough…" he mumbled, struggling to his feet. The being in the simulator was still quite uncomfortable, though it didn't compare to the shock zero gravity would show him later on. He checked his watch and shook it then, placed it up to his ears. 

Five minutes later, Mazuri exited from the same hatch, carefully ducking to avoid striking his head against the metal frame. Dack still had his ear pressed against his wristwatch. 

"Bishop, what are you doing?" asked Mazuri in a methodical voice, before taking off his glasses and wiping them with a cloth.

"I can't hear my watch," mumbled Dack. "I think it might be broken."

Mazuri's face contorted slightly. "Was there any chance that you wore it into the simulator chamber?" he asked.

"Uh…duh," said Dack quickly, still inspecting his watch. "I wanted to keep track of the time. That's sort of what it's for, stupid."

"Uaargg…" yelled Mazuri, before rubbing his forehead with his hand. "You idiot! That's a magnetized chamber! Don't you know what magnetic fields do to unshielded watches?" he demanded. "Didn't you listen to the physics instructor during high school?"

Dack blinked. "What do they do?"

Mazuri sighed. "I hope you weren't carrying any discs with you as well. Come on, let's find the Lieutenant and Kanna." 

The younger pilot nodded. "Right, I think I know where they are. Come on." He quickly walked off, and Mazuri prepared to follow him, when he paused, and turned to the hatch, and stared at it.

The exercise had been easy enough. But that was just a scratch on the surface of what Outer Space would really be like. It occurred to Mazuri that he was more afraid then he thought he was capable of being. 

***

Kanna had returned to her new Taurus, climbing up the gantry, and had begun to inspect the beam rifle, staring at her own reflection in the shiny surface, when, below her, Mazuri and Dack entered the hangar, Mazuri trailing around, less energetic then what was customary to him. 

Mazuri looked up and yelled. "Hey! Kanna! You up there? Where's the Lieutenant?" 

Kanna looked down from the beam rifle and thought for a moment. "He's in the operations office!" She paused and moved, seeming to disappear from Mazuri's view, and then reappeared holding something. "Hey guys! Catch these!"

She released two small, shiny objects. Dack, fearing that they were small grenades, and ran for cover, while Mazuri calmly stepped away from where he expected them to land. The two small metal things struck the ground with a tinkling noise, and he bent down to retrieve them. 

"What are these?" he asked.

"Keys to the lockers that hold your norm suits!" she yelled out, before disappeared.

***

Walker sat at a desk in the Operations Office, inspected his mission statement. Besides stacks of papers, on the desk was a monitor, demanding in white words against a black background that he register each member of his team for a specific task in the 4th Interstellar. The turned from the mission statement and looked at a small printout. The scores from the simulator test that Mazuri and Dack had performed. 

"Well, I suppose this clarifies it," he muttered. It was make sense to say that Mazuri was probably the best pilot in their outfit. The Kenyan was probably a better pilot than Walker himself: Walker had marginally more kills, but Mazuri had spent half the time in the Alliance. He looked at Bishop's Russian piloting record sadly. "Too bad, Dack," he muttered. 

Using his left hand, he took of his glove from his right hand and pressed it against the surface of the desk, which began to glow faintly as it read his fnigerprints. "Relay, OZ, code seven-nine-two-eight-three-zero-dee, Walker, Operations."

The desk hummed, and a new screen displayed on the monitor, and he touched the screen, highlighting three names: his own, Mazuri, and Kirishima. It beeped again, and Walker closed the software program, then grabbed Dack's report, and tossed it into a port directly underneath the top of the desk, sometimes called a 'memory port', though that was a inappropriate name. The file lay there undisturbed for a moment, then the port glowed and the report quickly blackened and burnt away into ash. 

Walker watched as the report was vaporized and the port darkened once more, and sighed, pulling his glove back on, and pulled his small pager off his built, then spoke into it. "Walker here. Grab your normal suits, than get some sleep. We're on the first shuttle leaving tomorrow."

***

Alarms sounded as the Siberia Facility prepared for another launch, of the half dozen or so it would experience today.

Kirishima ran through the corridors, finally dressed in a sufficiently-sized 'normal' spacesuit, with the OZ insignia on her shoulders. With her helmet under one arm and her duffle bag under another, she made her way towards her assigned launch pad. She had spent time making last-minute reviews of schematics of the Taurus SMS and its shuttle-carrier system.

She entered the launch pad, which was essentially a large concrete slab outside the factory proper, with a large, spherical vessel on it. Underneath the spherical shells, according to what Kanna had learned, were three Taurus SMS hardwired to a space-carrier. Either that was the case, or someone had played an prank of astounding proportions on the 4th Interstellar. 

Passing technicians with her security clearance, she boarded the small gantry hatch and climbed up through the exterior shell via small, and to her, very cramp corridors, which was supposed to be jettisoned after the carrier reached orbit. The first peculiar thing she noticed was that what little interior structure the exterior sell had consisted of corridors and ladders positioned _horizontal, _parallel to the ground surface, while the structure of the actual carrier itself was _vertical_ when compared to the ground. Eventually, after unlocking and pulling up a flap from the carrier exterior surface inside the shell, she managed to locate a large, yellow button marked 'MANUAL OPEN' in English, though the writing was, as she expecting, vertical. She struck it and the airlock hatch 'lifted' to her right, and she swung in. It immediately occurred to her that she had in fact reached the carrier cockpit, which was far nicer than the exterior shell on the inside, and she was not at all surprised to see who was piloting the shuttle.

"Hello, Dack," she said, soothingly, as she climbed over to his seat with an arm hanging onto the control surfaces, finding his staring rigidly upwards at the view screens. "Glad to see you'll be driving for us today. Remember, on Monday's bar nights, you're the designated driver. Same thing for Tuesday through Sunday, incidentally."

Dack gritted his teeth and barked out. "Shut up, Kirishima! Just shut up, and get the hell out of my cockpit!"

Kanna lifted her hands up. "Touchy, touchy. Maybe its all that blood flowing to your head. Where are the others?"

"In the ready room, _where you should be too_."

Kanna nodded and swung herself down to the cockpit wall next to the hatch, landing on it as though it was a floor. _This whole vertical room thing is starting to confuse the hell out of me…_She bent over and rapidly tapped the keypad next to the hatch and it swung open, and she carefully climbed through, to see both Mazuri and Walker strapped into absorption seats. Mazuri was reading a small paperback novel, with a small drop of perspiration at the tip of his nose, right underneath the frames of his glasses.

"Sir!" she said quickly, trying to salute, without loosing her grip on the doorframe. 

Walker nodded, his head incased in the conical light blue norm suit helmet. With a gloved hand, he reached over and tapped the a small communication device mounted on his left wrist. "Bishop, how much longer? I'm not completely sure, but I heard you can die from blood flow to the brain."

Bishop's tinny, if irritable, voice came over in a speaker in his helmet. "Approximately three minutes, sir."

"Kanna, you'd be wise to strap in," commented Mazuri nervously, who put away his novel and donned his helmet, then locked it in place on his neck jerkly. "Liftoff is supposed to be so violent that even you should have difficulty experiencing it."

"Oh…right…" she muttered, as she let herself fall into the seat next to Mazuri and began strapping herself in. Almost immediately after she buckled the restraints, she heard a creaking, metallic noise, and turned to the Lieutenant.

"Gantry locks being released," Walker assured. "Right, Officer Mazuri?" he asked, then paused. "Mazuri?"

Mazuri was shuddering in a pattern not unlike that of the shuttle, but in a different direction. 

"MAZURI!"

"Yes, yes, sir!" stuttered Mazuri, turning towards him and swallowing. "Whatever you say, sir!"

"Something the matter, Ace?" asked Kanna, blinking. 

"Well…it's just that…" he swallowed. "You probably already know, I don't travel very well."

"That, Officer Mazuri," said Walker calmly as he adjusted his helmet, "Is an understatement."

"Anyway, I'm a little nervous about this whole thing…" he admitted sheepishly.

Kanna blinked again, as surprised as ever. Mazuri's normal personality seemed calm and collected, almost ignorant, even when the rest of them were panicked. And now, here they were, about to break the gravitational pull, and while the three of them were basically remaining calm by putting their faith in OZ, and Mazuri had finally lost his nerves. It may have been the fact he was unused to traveling: Mazuri had remained in Nairobi for the first eighteen years of his life, and in the past few months, he had traveled several thousand kilometers, and was about to leave the actually planet. Or perhaps it was the fact he had been trained in the former-Alliance, and didn't have as much faith in OZ as one might have come to believe.

Mazuri nodded nervously. "Yes, well, I…I suppose it won't be that bad…I mean, it's a fairly regular procedure, right? We've been doing it for almost three hundred years, right?" he said aloud through his helmet, and began laughing nervously.

Kanna looked at the shorter, darker man, and reached forward, putting her stiff, gloved hand on his and closed her grip. Mazuri turned slightly and looked at her, and she gave a sincere, assuring nod. He nodding in return. _Don't worry_, she seemed to say with her eyes. _It's normal to be afraid._

"Mark one minute to departure!" yelled Dack's voice over the shuttle intercom system. The carrier had windows, but they were obstructed by the exterior shell currently, yet one could hear the gantry structure spreading apart, and the ignition fuel being released. For departure into space, the carrier did not use its own vernier engines, but instead, the exterior shell came with one-use heavy duty liquid-oxygen fuel busters, which were set aflame by simple spark plugs mounted on the gantry base. 

"This is it," said Walker calmly. "If any of you were having any second thoughts about this…" he looked briefly at Mazuri, "I'm sorry. I am."

"Don't be," said Mazuri, with another nervous laugh. "Think about it: I'm the only person in my entire family to ever leave for space."

Outside, the oxygen was ignited, and the gantries broke free. Smoke bellowed across the launch pad, as OZ technicians screamed last-minute instructions to each other through the huge cloud. In the cockpit, Dack swallowed and lifted the glass flap over a large red switch. For a moment, he stared at it, then looked at the countdown displayed on all of the cockpit's many monitors. 

**00:00:21**

"Twenty seconds!" he yelled out over the channel. Surprisingly, he got a response. It was Kanna.

"Dack, lets try to make this a smooth ride, okay? No stupid mistakes, right?" 

Dack frowned and muttered under his breath. _Giant unappreciative wench…_"Eighteen…seventeen…sixteen…"

**00:00:15**

"…fifteen…fourteen…" he paused. "Oh, you know what? Screw this! Launch now!"

**00:00:13**

He slammed his fist against the red button. "ZERO!" All of the screens flashed once.

**00:00:00**

And the numbers disappeared and were replaced by diagnostics and systems displays. The shuttle lurched violently upwards, then slowly rose off the platform. The channel crackled. "Shuttle Tee-Kay Four-Two-One! You are leaving several seconds ahead of schedule."

Dack responded immediately. "Whoops, my bad! What are you going to do? Court-marshal me?" He turned off the channel and faced upwards. "Hang onto your drawers, and don't piss in them!"

"Too late…" muttered Mazuri over the channel. 

Dack Bishop grinned and laughed. "Ye-HAW!"

Outside, the shuttle rapidly lifted off the ground, a hundred meters, five hundred meters, until it was in the upper atmosphere. The exterior lights, originally green, flashed red, and there was a whining sound, barely audible with such a thing atmosphere. Immediately afterwards, the shuttle exterior, several large metal shells that used to fit perfectly together, and scattered, revealing the actual carrier: a cylinder dominated by a massive mushroom-like titanium cap. Around the cylinder, beneath the cap, there were three massive jet-black Taurus SMS. The flames from the liquid-oxygen boosters quickly dissipated, and the Dack fired up his own verniers for forward thrust.

Inside the cockpit, Mazuri blinked, his forehead glistening with sweat. He reached over and very slowly unlocked his helmet, though he knew very well there was still air in the shuttle. He let it float gently off his head and right above where he was sitting, and looked up.

"…wow…" he said. Mazuri, intellectual and mobile suit ace, was completely lost for words. 

After watching Mazuri, Kanna and Walker quickly followed suit, letting their helmets float free. Walker pressed his headset, which he still had on. "Bishop, is it safe to cut the restraints?"

"Should be. There aren't any Gee-forces or anything to worry about," he replied. 

Walker nodded and unbuckled his harness, slowly floating free. "This…this is incredible..." he laughed. He hadn't been weightless since he trained at Lake Victoria. He turned to one of the thick, rectangle window panes and stared out of it. 

"So this is outer space…" he said slowly, and smiled. 

==============

Author's Notes:

The name for the OZ Communications Officer 'Sidney' is credited to _Captain Anoynomous. _She's the same blond-haired officer aboard OZ, as is Lyn the brown-haired Officer. Both appeared in the episode _Crossfire at Barge_. I hope he doesn't mind me taking his name^^;; 


	10. The Defeat (Revised)

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 10_**

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gundam Wing or Sakura Wars, which are property of Bandai and ADV Films respectively._

_The end of this chapter has been very heavily edited! _

In the darkness of the abandoned Colony of Area D at Lagrange Point 2, three Leos, painted in the violet color of the Alliance Space Forces, slowly stepped backwards through the cityscape, part of the 52nd Alliance Space Leo Group, E-Company. 

The channel crackled open from one of the Leos. "I'm getting nothing from the command tower!"

A response was immediate. _Perhaps they managed to abandon it…_"We'd better get out of here too!"

The Group Commander responded. "Hurry!                   

"Yes sir!"                                                                                                         

With its back against the Colony wall, one of the Leo's shifted and, using the massive index finger on its left arm, pressed a large key button. Behind the Commander's Leo, the blast doors slid open.

The third Leo pilot, clad in his dull-brown spacesuit, spotted three streaks of blue light several hundred meters away. "Enemy approaching!"

The Commander didn't bother waiting. "FIRE!" he screamed, as all three Leos opened up with their weapons, three Beam Rifles. As the three streaks came closer, through the barrage of fire, they appeared to be three jet-black, fast moving aircraft, passing over the cityscape. The Leos continued firing, though their shots were far too slow, and instead struck the buildings behind the craft, rocking the otherwise motionless atmosphere. 

The three craft swung around, expertly avoiding the barrage of enemy fire. Inside the leading one, the pilot, Lieutenant Walker of the 4th OZ Interstellar, opened the channel.

"Kirishima, Mazuri, break off of me and continue forward," he ordered, his helmet tilting slightly. "See if you can direct their fire. Begin flight plan _turkey shoot_."

"Affirmative!"

"Yes, sir!" 

Two of the craft, which were actually OZ-12SMS 'Taurus' in their streamlined flight mode, broke off as the leader continued to pass around the buildings, coming directly in front of it, in a reverse V-formation. They continued to distract the fire from the sluggish Leos, and Walker tapped a button on his right flightstick, selecting the secondary fire-mode for the large, heavy Beam Cannon mounted directly above him. The cannon's muzzle began to glow in the darkness, as it rapidly charged. Upon reaching full capacity, it fired a elongated shot of slow-moving particles, in an ellipse shape.

The ellipse descended upon the Leos far faster than the Taurus SMS themselves, which immediately broke off as they approached the Colony's wall. Seconds later, from outside, a huge explosion bellowed from the side of the Colony as the internal atmosphere caught on fire and burned into space. A single violet Leo, totally crippled, was hurled out, and drifted in space towards the moon before its internal fusion reactor exploded, consuming it in another fireball.

While the Leo's explosion lasted only a few brief seconds in the cold, airless environment of space, the fireball radiating from the side of the Colony did endure for a few moments, and the three Taurus's from the 4th Interstellar blasted through it at several hundred kilometers an hour.

"You think we got them?" joked Mazuri as he watched the Leo's explosion burn out and die.

"Probably. Convert to mobile suit mode," ordered Walker. The three Taurus's did so, at almost the exact same time, turning from fighter-like craft into 17-meter-tall humanoid machines.

"Sir!" yelled Kirishima, turning her helmet-clad head. "I've got…four more Leos, coming in from mark three! I think their might be another wave in behind them!"

"They just won't let up, will they?" asked Walker. "Fire a barrage, and accept any announcements to surrender." 

Almost motionlessly, the Taurus's aimed their beam rifles at the approaching wave of Leos and fired with unerring precession. One of the beams past directly through a Leo's center, causing it to explode almost immediately, while another blasted off the Leo's leg and part of its thruster pack first, causing it to spin out of control. 

Walker turned to other Leos, who were making an attempt to escape, as three of their Alliance comrades managed to distract the 4th Interstellar with a volley of fire, leveled his beam cannon, and fired it on its primary mode of fire. Once more it charged for nearly a second and a half, but this time, a long, wide, bright-yellow particle field was emitted from the muzzle, several times the size of the beam rifle itself. It lit up the flight path of the Leo's, then quickly melted them away or caused them to explode. The field was several kilometers long, and could be seen from one end of the Colony to another. 

"You got them, sir," commented Kirishima, giving him a thumbs-up sign, though he couldn't see it. Behind them was the construction site of the huge OZ Space Station _Barge_, as large as one of the Colonies themselves, surrounded by even more Taurus's. No attacks had been made on Barge yet, as this showed an example of what just _three_ Taurus SMS were capable of. 

"Soldiers of the Alliance," said a warm, compassionate voice over the channel. Walker looked up from his displays and smirked ironically. It was his new superior, Colonel Une, no doubt. "Stop this futile resistance. OZ has come here to bring peace to Outer Space. Now let us, together, welcome a new age."

***

A great deal had changed in the first month Walker had spent in Outer Space.

_You know, I have trouble believing it's still me_, he wrote in his journal.

The entire Alliance Space Armada, an estimated three _thousand _space-capable Leos, eight mobile suit companies, two hundred and fifty units, had all but disintegrated. 

On Earth, suspiciously shortly after Walker had left Siberia, the Gundam Zero-One, referred to its pilot as 'Wing', was attacked by the Tallgeese, along with its pilot, Zechs Merquise. Walker had not been informed of the exact details, but the Wing Gundam supposedly activated its own self-detonation device in an act of suicide. 

Besides his newfound service to Colonel Une on her mission in Outer Space, Walker had made two important acquaintances: an short, ugly man by the name of Hahad Acht, an inspector from the Romefeller Foundation, and a young, impressionable Space Officer by the name of Tycho Nichol, whom served as a personal aid to the Colonel aboard Barge. The former he had yet to actually meet in person, probably for the best, but still developed an intense dislike for him. It had been shortly after he arrived in Outer Space, only two days after receiving word that of the destruction of Gundam Zero-One.

_"Lieutenant Walker…"_ he had said in a murky voice that set Kanna's hair on edge as she stood in what was technically not his office, on Barge.

Walker leaned forward on his desk, trying to establish a sense of dominance, rubbing his gloved hands together, towards the monitor. _"I assume you are the Romefeller Inspector?"_

The Earth-to-Space communiqué flicked on his screen, and he nodded. Instead of an OZ uniform or a Romefeller tunic, he was dressed like something out of the Victorian Era, a black dress-coat with a white shirt beneath it, and a stovepipe hat, just to top it off. He was probably one of the most ridiculous-looking individuals Walker had the opportunity to meet yet. 

_"Yes, I am Acht," _he said in a sinister voice. Behind Walker, Kanna had shifted the weight on her feet. Clearly, she couldn't stand listening to the man's voice.

_"How can I help you, Inspector?"_ Walker had asked, as politely as he could manage. _After all, _he wrote in the journal, _he went through the trouble of hunting down an unremarkable acquaintance of the Lightning Count…_

Acht then nodded. _"I have been having some concerns of the intentions of your colleague, Zechs Merquise. Mr. Merquise, as you are no doubt aware, recently triumphed over the Gundam Zero-One." _He then paused. _"You were aware of this, no?"_

_"I was aware of the duel, yes."_

_"And I have also learned that he made an attempt to collect the debris remaining from the Gundam, _for his own use_." _

Walker had wanted to bring an axe down on that ugly face. He still did, in retrospect. 

_"I was not aware of that until now. Thank you for informing me."_

_"Lieutenant Walker, do you know why Mr. Merquise might be interested in doing such a thing?"_

As naturally as he could have, Walker shrugged. _"The only other option would have been just to leave it there. As an engineer, I would have…"_

_"I am not interested in your reminiscing, Lieutenant Walker,"_ Acht quickly hissed, catching him off guard._ "It is becoming apparent to me that you know nothing of use, and it was a waste of my time to find and contact you in my investigation. Good day!"_

The communiqué ended, the ugly image replaced by a three-dimensional model of the OZ Insignia slowly rotating. Walker leaned back in the chair, which, like the office, belonged to Officer Nichol, and sighed. 

_"I hate this. I really do,"_ he told Kanna behind him.

_"That man gives me the creeps,"_ she had told him.

_"I can see why."_

_Acht symbolizes everything wrong with Romefeller_, he wrote down in his journal. _Paranoia, need to express dominance, neurotic behavior, and the inability to change with the times. _Nichol was better, much better. An actual human being. The two had spoken on fairly brief terms, but there were no hostile feelings between them. And he had been kind enough to suggest that Walker receive the communiqué from the short, ugly man with a stovepipe on his head in his private office, as oppose to Walker's carrier. 

_I haven't spoken to either Noin or Zechs. I don't plan to either. _Supposedly, both of them were, right now, in Antarctica or such, according to a rumor Walker had heard. Why, he couldn't begin to imagine. 

_I've had an opportunity to actually meet some of the Colonists, _he continued writing. _It was at a seminar, though I wonder if you could call them 'real' colonists: they were actually war reporters for _BBC: Interstellar_. And they're just as annoying as the terrestrial war reporters. _

"Sir!"

Walker immediately closed his journal and looked. In the doorway was Officer Kirishima, slightly crouched over, and floating to his right. "There's a transmission for you! They've requested we rendezvous at Barge!

Walker moaned loudly, echoing through the station. He stood up of his sleeping bunk, an interesting process in zero gravity, and floated over to the doorway, pausing right in front of Kirishima. Her hair was floating in an abstract manner, along with the long strip of white cloth she kept tied around her forehead. 

"Again? I'll go take it…" he muttered. "Who knows, maybe I can stall a little more…"

Kirishima confusingly watched him float underneath her arm and into the communications room at the front of the carrier, and she closed the doors to the bunk. The ship also had a small Operations Room, which also doubled as a lounge during the 4th Interstellar's free time. With a single swift push, she drifted over to it, and grabbed the doorway into the Operations Room to stop her. 

"It's weird, you know?" she asked.

Mazuri and Dack, both in the Operations Room, looked up at her. Mazuri was crouched over a holographic chess set (real pieces were too easy to float away), while Dack was reading a magazine he had purchased at one of the Colonies which was basically a catalogue for expensive lingerie, while sitting on the floor.

"Define 'weird'," asked Mazuri.

"Maz-kun, has it yet occurred to you that the Lieutenant has been intentionally avoiding Barge ever since we arrived in Outer Space. He's even go as far to sign us up for extra patrol hours."

Bishop looked up from his magazine. "Yea, so?"

Mazuri sighed. "Don't you get it? The Boss is avoiding Barge, for some reason or another."

Dack shrugged and looked back down at his magazine. "He's definitely not the only one."

Kirishima looked at Mazuri and the two exchanged sighs, and Kirishima pushed herself over to Dack. Huskily, she grabbed his head by the hair, and pulled so they were eye to eye, then began to strike him in the forehead repeatedly with the base of her right palm.

"Wake up! Wake up! Where's your brain?" she demanded while striking him. 

"Ow, ow! Let go!" He struggled vainly, as gravity was not on his side. "Do you treat all Americans like this?"

Kirishima rolled her eyes. _Moron_. 

Mazuri looked up at them and sighed. "Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Can't we all just, get along? I've got some serious space-sickness to attend to, if you've got nothing better to do."

Kirishima sighed, and pushed Bishop back to his spot on the floor. "Let me try to put it in simpler terms. There is something on Barge, specifically, someone, who Walker is going to serious lengths in avoiding." 

Dack blinked and looked up. "Oh…I get it…I think…"

"Well, it's a start."

***

"Walker, you've got to return to Barge. You need to reload and re-supply."

Crouching over the monitor screen, Walker sighed. He turned back to the video-image of Nichol. "Is it really necessary?" he asked again.

"Lieutenant, you've been operating on the same supplies for almost a month. I'm surprised that you've managed to save up enough water for the entire time."

Walker nodded. "I see your point." 

"Besides, you need to have the new subspace frequencies issued to your group." Nichol paused, and frowned. "I don't see why you're so reluctant. You've never even been to Barge…it's not bad, or anything. I'll probably be a significant improvement over that cramped carrier."

"Well, that's actually not a problem, none of my pilots are claustrophobic." Walker stared at the screen, wondering if Nichol would get the joke.

"First-Lieutenant Walker…"

"Yes, yes, I know. Return to Barge. Une's orders. No more procrastination." _Blah blah blah…_"I'll be there."

Nichol nodded. "Good. You see, that wasn't so painful, now was it?"

The video-image of him vanished, replaced by a blue background with a spinning OZ-insignia. Walker let himself float away from the monitor and sighed. _Nichol, you have no idea how painful Julian Lyn can be._ He reached for his headset, donned it, and spoke. "Officer Bishop, set course for Barge."

***

As their carrier was being refueled and re-supplied, Kirishima, followed by Mazuri and Bishop, walked down the corridors of Barge, still dressed in their norm suits. It wasn't as great a change as they had hoped, but at least they _could _walk: Barge was so large that, like the Colonies, it had it's own gravitational field, measuring in at an average of 0.92 Earth Gravity.

The return of gravity was actually a double-edged sword: Kirishima felt better, able to use her legs again, though both Mazuri and Bishop could feel the strain on their muscles for remaining in zero-gravity for nearly a month and returning, despite the exercises and chemical supplements. 

"So…what do we do?" asked Dack tiredly, dragging his feet along. 

Kirishima thought about it for a moment. "Well, the Boss gave us specific orders to remain on the side of Barge opposite of where he was until he gave us the OK." She shrugged. "I wonder what the big deal is."

Mazuri nodded, his helmet underneath his arm. "There's no mistake about it, Lieutenant Walker is trying to keep us away from something. I don't know what, but something."

"I think I'm going to vomit," muttered Bishop.

"Well, then get the hell away from me!"

"Baka!"

***

Walker stood there, dressed in his normal black uniform, in the Communications Center of Barge. 

_I've had this coming…no point in trying to get out of it now, I suppose._

And then it came. 

'It' was a swift slap in the face by a gloved hand. Walker's head shifted to his right slightly, and then faced forward again. "I take it you're not happy to see me?" he asked.

Julian Lyn, communications officer and technician aboard Barge, just stared at him, her mouth twisted into an bitter expression. "What the hell has been the matter with you?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

Behind them, Technical Officer Nichol stood next to the blond Communications Officer Sidney. "Do you have any idea what this is about, miss?" asked Nichol discreetly.

"No, not at all."

"All right, Walker, now," said Lyn angrily. "I want you to start telling me the truth."

"I'll try."

"How long have you been in Outer Space?" he asked.

Walker thought about it. "More than three weeks."

Lyn clenched her right fist to the point where the veins bulged underneath her white gloves. "All right," she managed to get out. "Now, why have you been avoiding me?"

That was a harder question for Walker. He was just glad that Kirishima and the others weren't here to witness this: a leader with acceptable tactical skills, but with the character and charm of an orangutan. "I've…I've…" He hadn't always been that bad at this. When was an engineer, women, Lyn included, had told him he had a sort of earnest, realistic charm. _If I had it, I probably lost it when I died at Corsica. _

Lyn continued to stare at him, with dangerous brown eyes, as if trying to bore into where his soul once was, and he swallowed. There was only one way to deal with this, he decided. 

Walker turned to Nichol and Sidney. "Would you two excuse us?" he asked.

The two, who had become firmly interested in what had been happening, blinked and sputtered back into real life. "Oh, yea, sorry!" the two muttered, one after another, before they left the room. 

Lyn continued to stare accusingly at him. Walker began to faulter.

"Come on, Lyn, what's the big deal?" he asked, in a casual tone of voice he had all but forgotten. "So, I didn't tell you that I was here…I was busy!"

Lyn stepped forward, causing Walker to automatically take a step back, towards the room's wall. "Walker…what's happened to us?"

Walker blinked. "Excuse me?"

"What's happened to us? We used to be so close…" Lyn hung her head down, probably just an attempt to make Walker feel more guilty. "…it's like…it's like we're drifting apart. Ever since you went to go fight in Russia and I was sent to Barge."

Walker nodded, turning his head to the side. "I suppose that's true."

"And now…now that you've come to Barge…you _avoid _me?"

"It was a call to duty!" argued Walker. "What about the Colonists?"

"It's like you'd rather face death against the Former-Alliance than meet me! Is that it? You'd rather die than have to talk to me?" accused Lyn in her emotion-choked voice. 

"No! No, that's not it at all! I mean, facing the Alliance out here isn't exactly life-threatening, you know? OZ has only lost two pilots since we arrived in Space? Both of them were Cadets who suffocated to death when their normal suits were ripped."

"You and your stupid statistics! That's all you're about!"

"Come on, Lyn, this is childish!" _Big mistake, Walker_, he thought. 

Lyn looked up, her eyes burning. "What did you call me?" 

Before Walker could think up a valid excuse, Lyn pulled her right arm back and punched him in the jaw, knocking him back, against the wall. He hit the wall and slid to the floor, his head limp. Lyn just stared at him. 

"Get up," she said angrily. 

With some effort, Walker stood up, his cap on the ground. With the fingers of his right hand, he felt his face and then the inside of his mouth. He was bleeding. He turned to Lyn and tried to smile. "You see? You can still punch very well." He rubbed his cheek and bent over to his side. "I find that so arousing…" he muttered, with a broken smile. 

"Don't try to talk your way out of this. You betrayed me."

Walker stood up to his full height, though he was only minimally taller then Lyn herself. He couldn't feel his cheek. It was time to submit. "You're right. I betrayed you. I'm sorry."

He stood in front of her, both of them in the black Napoleonic uniforms of OZ. Lyn looked at him again, but this time, the anger seemed to be drained from her voice. "You mean it?" she asked. Under her eyes, moisture was gathering. Walker knew the routine well: now, after what for him had been a very painful but emotional gesture, she would somehow make herself cry. How she did it, Walker wasn't completely sure. It probably involved years of training.

"I mean it."

"Oh, Christopher!" she cried out, throwing herself into his rigid arms. Walker continued standing there, his head cocked to the side slightly, as she hugged him. "God, I missed you! I've had such a bad time in Outer Space, I was afraid you were dead! I can't stand Space! It's cold, and it makes me sick! You were the only person I knew in OZ, besides Sidney." 

"Who's Sidney?" asked Walker. _I have got to do a better job avoiding her. _"You're blond-haired friend?"

"Yea…" She seemed to be whimpering in his sleeves. He hated this. Lyn was, undeniably, great at logistics, data procession, and communication sequence routing. But she had a glaring flaw: she could, at times, be extremely overemotional. Probably why she had never been issued a firearm larger than a pistol, much less a mobile suit. 

***

Kanna Kirishima found herself reading over OZ's primary newsletter, _Zodiac Informant_, as were Mazuri and Bishop. All three of them were waiting for further instructions, and standing around in their normal suits.

While flipping through the pages, Kanna caught a glimpse of the Lieutenant, floating over towards them. "Sir!" she said quickly, saluting. 

Walker turned the salute. "I'm sorry all of you had to wait. We can leave now." 

Kirishima considered asking what that had all been about, but decided against it. "Of course, sir."

Walker nodded and patted Mazuri on the shoulder with his hand. "You holding up all right?" he asked.

Mazuri looked up from the newsletter. Besides the fact he was slightly paler then usual, he nodded. "Affirmative. They have some decent digestives at the Supply Pharmacy."

"And they sell 'Tic-Tacs' too!" grinned Bishop, reaching into his norm suit pocket and taking out a small, clear rectangular container made of plastic and shaking it. 

Walker smiled faintly and nodded. "Well, there's no reason for us to remain on Barge. I've spoken to Nichol, and work on the carrier has been finished. If there's nothing else the rest of you want to do…"

"NO!" cried Kirishima and Bishop at the same time. Both of them didn't like Barge's gravity, to say the least. 

"That's good news," commented Mazuri, folding the newsletter, and nodding his head. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired. I'm not sure whether its just the reappearance of gravity or what, or the air, or whatever but I…"

Twenty minutes later, after the 4th Interstellar made their way back to the Taurus SMS-Carrier. 

"…and my feet felt like cement bricks, really, and did I mention how tired I was?" mumbled Mazuri, before Kirishima shoved him towards his bunk in the Carrier's small sleeping quarters. He floated into it, and Bishop muffled his head with a pillow. 

"Aiyah…that's a relief. At least we don't have to listen to him anymore." Kirishima floated down into her own sleeping alcove, her arms resting on her legs. "You know, I just realized, it's been almost thirty hours since we last took a break longer then half an hour."

Walker nodded, and turned to Bishop. "Dack, can you take us out?"

"No problem. The sooner we get out of Barge's gravitational field, the better."

Climbing onto the bunk above Kirishima's. "You're right. It doesn't seem so exhausting until you're back in gravity."

Kirishima nodded, loosening and unbuckling the breastplate of her spacesuit, then began taking off her boots, and hurled herself into the small alcove. "Might as well enjoy the seven hour break, right?" 

"I suppose so…"

"Hai."

Walker took off his cape and hurled it at the ground, trying not to rumple his uniform as it floated down. "…hey, Kanna?"

"Hai?"

"…never mind. Sorry about that."

"…"

***

Walker couldn't sleep. An insomniac at his worse. 

He spent most of his time listening to Kirishima's rhythmical, even hypnotic, light snoring, and counting the number of bolts that held the sleeping alcove together.

It wasn't the mattress. The mattress was firm but comfortable. And he wasn't cold, though he had been at first. 

He rolled over to face the outside of the alcove, thinking, then looked up. In the polished metal plate directly above him in the small bunk, he could see his reflection. 

Walker did not look very good. He needed a shave, and his hair was messed up. His eyes had large bags underneath them, and were very red. _Maybe it'll help if I close my eyes_, he thought. 

Still staring at his reflection, he slowly closed one eye, then the other. It seemed to work.

And then there, where his tired eyes had been in his reflection, were two glowing green spots. He immediately opened his eyes to see his own reflection again. 

_What was that?_

He closed his eyes again, and the bright green spots, like eyes themselves, reappeared, this time with a white, metallic face to accompany them. He remembered the face immediately. 

Zero-Four. The Gundam that the boy had been piloting.

The urge to vomit became stronger then ever. _I'm finally going insane…_

He immediately opened his eyes and turned his head towards the inside of the alcove. Sleep came easier when you were afraid. 

Much easier. 

***

He slept, undisturbed, for about four hours. It wasn't much, but he felt tremendously better after it, as if new life had been injected into him 

A faint beeping from his waist, or rather, his uniform belt, sounded and he slowly opened his eyes, and stretched. The scary mental encounter beforehand was just a faint memory in his mind. He reached for his belt and unhooked the pager and looked at the number.

Nichol.

He pressed the small key and put it up to his ear. "Walker here. What's up, Nichol."

Nichol's tinny voice came over it. "Walker, sorry to cut into your break, but I'm afraid I need to run a security patrol in a new Colony."

Yawning, he sat up in his bunk, not an easy task in zero gravity. "Which one?" he asked, rubbing his face.

"Dee-Oh-Four-Four-Two-Oh-Nine-Eight, at Lagrange Point One. If you're busy, I can find someone else…" Nichol commented indifferently.

"No, it's all right, I'll do it." _Not that I have a choice, anyway. _He floated down to the floor and spoke into the pager. "I'm transferring you over to my headset, standby." He pressed another key, tossed his headset into the bunk, and pulled his headset out of his norm suit and set it over his head. "You still here, Nichol?"

The Barge Officer's voice came in much clearer now. "Yea."

"Give me some time to pull on a norm suit. I'll be out in about twenty." He looked at Kirishima, still snoring rhythmically. "I'm going alone though. My team needs the sleep."

"Sorry, Walker, against regulations. We don't just send out lone Lieutenants into Colonies that might be crawling with Alliance _Spacies_." There was a pause. "Tell you what…you let your team get the rest. We've got three Taurus's uploaded with version Two-Point-Zero-Three of our mobile doll software, and we need you to take them out for a spin."

"Sounds like a plan, Nichol," muttered Walker as he pulled on his norm suit. 

" 'Course, you realize, you'll have to answer to Une if you take out those new dolls."

He moaned loudly. "Great, I have to have Colonel Une looking over my shoulder just because I'm taking out lifeless machines." He sighed, and looked at Kirishima, then at Mazuri. Under his blankets, Mazuri looked as though eh was attempting to mate with his pillow. "God, the things I do for my team…" 

As soon as he was dressed in the entire norm suit, with the exception of the helmet, he let himself float out of the bunk and into the Carrier's main hold, then into the cockpit. Bishop was still sitting in the pilot's chair, ever-diligent, with his head floating back and some drool forming spherical balls from his mouth. 

"Go ahead and take a break, Bishop," he said, chuckling, as he reached forward and pressed the key on the command surfaces to release the holding locks on the command-variant Taurus SMS. He spun himself around, still not touching the ground, and floated to the exit hatches, located in the main hold. "Nichol."

"Yea?"

"What are the access codes for those new Taurus's?" he asked, as he turned the large handle on the hatch. With a loud mechanical sound, it released, and the hatch could be lifted up. Normally, there would be a rush of air, as oxygen expanded quickly and attempted to flow into the mobile suit, but some had already been seeping in through the hatch, forming a thin atmosphere in the Taurus cockpit. _I'll have to have Bishop look at that, before that oxygen starts to make the cockpit components rust. _

"Uh…I'm afraid I don't know. Hold on, I'm patching you through to Colonel Une. She'll know." 

"Great," commented Walker as he locked his helmet in place and closed the hatch. Since the Taurus's cockpit was the same position as the cockpit on most mobile suits, he was still facing the shuttle, and he pressed the key-switch to close the cockpit hatch and carrier hatch. As he was fastening the restraints, the small display at the top corner of his forward viewscreen flickered, and an image of a figure obscured my shadow appeared. 

"_Lieutenant _Walker," she said calmly in a voice that made Walker want to disappear into his seat. 

"_Colonel _Une," he replied as coolly as he could. 

"You're taking the three newer series Taurus MDs out to patrol Colony Dee-Oh-Four-Four-Two-Oh-Nine-Eight. Make sure that they are not damaged." She paused. "Is that clear?"

"Affirmative, ma'am."

"I will be busy with other matters…should anything go wrong…"

"Nothing could go wrong," Walker insisted quickly. "After all, these mobile dolls are supposed to be infallible, right?"

Une shifted under the shadow. "That's what this test is set out to find." The display buzzed and the image disappeared, leaving Walker staring at it through his helmet. _I hate being her guinea pig…_

***

Officer Kirishima stretched herself rigorously as she floated into the main hold, to see both Mazuri and Bishop sitting at the tables. "Hey guys..." she said in a friendly manner, as she looked around. "Uh…where's the Lieutenant?"

"No idea," commented Bishop, not looking up from his magazine. "But Walker's Taurus is missing, if that helps." 

"Missing? You mean he took it out…"

"According to the computer, it was about three hours ago." 

"Probably was called to a patrol or something," mumbled Mazuri indifferently, still huddled over the holographic chess board. He pressed the square where one of his rooks were, his finger passing through the fuzzy blue shape of the actual hologram, and moved it forward several steps by tracing his finger along the board's smooth checkered surface in a straight line. 

"Well…at least we still have rations," she mumbled, opening a small freezer cabinet and taking out a small breakfast ration.

"You know you should brush your teeth first, right?" asked Mazuri as the board's computer moved a holographic knight and captured a bishop. He sighed and began thinking of his next move.

Kanna rolled her violet eyes. "Arigato, Orthodontist-sama," she said sarcastically and pocketed the ration, a small nut-meg bar, and floated herself over to the wash closet. In the zero gravity, most hygiene chores were slightly less then necessary, due to the lack of bacteria in an artificially maintained atmosphere. However, you still had to do them: OZ preached good hygiene habits to its soldiers like pointless propaganda. And they were considerably harder to do since most of them involved the use of liquid water. 

She grabbed the toothpaste tube, which had an OZ serial number stamped onto the side, and her toothbrush, which also had a similar serial number stamped onto the plastic, and squirted a small piece towards it. The peanut-size amount of toothpaste floated throat the air and hit the toothbrush, and she jammed it into her mouth, and began jamming it around her mouth strenuously as she stood in front of the sink. After a few moments of brushing while keeping her mouth shut around the toothbrush, she saw Bishop enter, and reach for a moist-towel in a package. She regarded the shorter man with a nod of her head and turned back to the mirror. 

"Uh…Kanna, you mind leaving?" he asked after wiping his face. "I sort of want to take a shower."

Kanna made an 'urk' sound, took out her tootbrush, and quickly pulled a small plastic bag off the counter, spat into it, sealed it, and tossed it into the rubbish containment. With a quick wipe of her face, she shook her head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because, I'm taking one," she said quickly. "I haven't had a shower in the past forty hours."

"Neither have I!" yelled Bishop, but Kirishima was already taking off her boots. Bishop sighed. "…let me guess," he muttered. "You're pulling rank for the shower as well?"

She shook her head as she threw her boots against the wall and began pulling off her tank top. "Iyey, gender! Ladies first, now get out!" 

Bishop sighed, risked one last glance at Kirishima as she undressed, and exited the wash closet, closing the hydraulic door after him. When he left, Kanna looked up at the ceiling. The shower system was the epitome of the entire ship's water line, and was the pride of countless egotistical Siberian technicians and engineers, included Watkins himself. Basically, it was a Plexiglas tube that extended from the ceiling onto a pedestal that the user was supposed to be standing on, and it began spraying hot water. As you were bathing, air pressure was supposed to force some of the water through the filter system back into the ship's reservoirs. 

In truth, the glass cylinder was not particularly wide, and Kanna had a little trouble fitting herself into it. She hit her head on the glass panel more then a few times. 

***

Three Taurus SMS, in their streamlined flight-mode, slowly descended down a dimly lit shaft in the Colony L1-D0442098, in a perfect V-formation. With loud, metallic sounds that would have certainly been heard had there been an atmosphere to carry them, they extended their arms from the back of their black titanium chassis. The titanium stabilization fins retracted upwards, and the leading Taurus grabbed the beam rifle mounted on its forward torso with its right hand, and the large beam cannon mounted on its back tipped to the right until it was vertical. The two space mobile suits trailing it followed suit with mechanical precision, though they lacked heavy beam cannons. 

They continued to descend, firing verniers to slow their speed, until they landed upon the target, a white cross on the ground surrounded by four white brackets, with a metal clunk that vibrated through the floor of that level. 

In his norm spacesuit, Walker checked the view screen to his left, then spoke into his headset. "Taurus mobile doll troops are all fine." He turned forward. "Or rather, everything is in perfect form."

On a small display monitor mounted at the top left corner of his forward view-screen, specifically designed for MS commanders to receive and decrypt important, secure transmissions, 'Ambassador' Une sat in her limousine. The warmth and charisma had been drained from her voice. "Is that right? Then return the unmanned Taurus's back to Barge." 

"What about security?" he asked. 

"The people of the Colonies consider mobile suits their enemies. I'll have a private meeting with them later on today. Over." The transmission was cut, replaced by a blank screen. 

Walker nodded faintly. _At least I can return to my unit of human beings…_"Cancel battle orders for mobile dolls, return to Barge," he said promptly over his headset. Theoretically, mobile dolls had sufficient intelligence to comprehend human commands, as long as they were simple and to the point. Complex maneuvers and orders had to be issued as pre-installed 'battle codes'. _Let's see if they listen…_In more than one incident, mobile dolls had just stood there, not understanding or just ignoring their human commanders.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long. Inside the mobile suit cockpits, the electronic displays flashed, and a computing sound would have been audible had they taken the unnecessary step of containing their own atmosphere. The empty cockpit, designed for a human pilot, became active, and the flightsticks began to shift on their own, still hardwired to the mobile doll's flight systems. As an engineer, Walker knew that any Taurus MD could be commandeered by a human pilot with proper authorization and be used as a standard SMS. The images on the monitors changed, and the flightsticks shifted to a stop. 

Outside, the mobile dolls legs began to retract towards each other, their stabilization fins folded downwards, and they stored their beam rifles, spun around slowly, returning to flight mode, and fired up their foot-verniers to propel themselves out of the shaft and into open space. Walker watched them briefly, and in his mind, he wondered whether he should be impressed or disgusted: the mobile dolls were indeed works of art, but a robotic war machine was nothing if not disturbing. He engaged flight mode, and quickly took off after them. 

***

"So, how are they?" she asked.

Walker stepped through the hatch, passing through the carrier's exterior hull and into its interior. He bent over to avoid hitting the top of his helmet against it, and looked up. "Excuse me? How are they? How are _what_?"

Kanna repeated, rubbing her red hair with a towel. "The mobile dolls, sir. How did they perform?"

Releasing the lock around the helmets collar, he pulled it off, and disconnected the nozzle on the front. "Surprisingly well, actually. I've been exchanging words with Nichol, a peer of mine, and most commanders agree that the mobile dolls are decent fighters. Of course, they're always the fact that…"

Mazuri lifted his head up from the table he was resting it on and blinked. "Sir, she's asking if its possible that those machines will make pilots like us unnecessary." 

Walker set his helmet in locker with a clear, glass door and stared at it. In almost imperceptibly small letters, 'WALKER' was printed on the back of it. "…I don't think so. I mean, I certainly hope that they won't, but I don't think they will either. However, should Romefeller suddenly run out of OZ pilots…like if we were to all suddenly die or something…I think that they would look at the mobile dolls as an alternative to us unreliable humans." He sighed.

"…"

"…so, is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Hard to tell," commented Kirishima. "Boss is dodging subject. Again."

Walker gave a quick chortle and nodded as he began unbuckling the norm suit. "You're not mistaken. I really don't know what I should tell you."

"How about this…" asked Mazuri. "Do you think our careers are in jeopardy?"

Kirishima threw her towel at him and laughed. "Of course _you're_ going to ask that. Former-Alliance-Ace-Who-Defected-Just-To-Save-His-Job-Mazuri-Sama."

"Long title," commented Walker as he floated himself towards the freezer cabinet and opened it, then pulled out an aluminum cylinder marked 'Coca-Cola' in elaborate red and white English letters, around six centimeters in diameter and about twenty centimeters tall, then, without giving it much thought, popped open the lid. 

"Wait, don't!" yelled Mazuri. 

Walker turned and held the can perfectly still. A small translucence maroon bubble expanded from the hole in the can and floated away, spinning in the zero gravity. Walker watched it idly as it floated through the hold and passed by Bishop, who tossed his magazine away and closed his jaws around it. Walker kept his hand on the top of the can, as Mazuri floated over with a plastic bag, carefully inserted it into the bag, sealed it, and tossed it into the rubbish containment, closed it in turn, and it was sucked out into vacuum. 

Lieutenant Walker stared at his hand and looked at the freezer. "…correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't all the liquid containers on this ship supposed to be special leak-resistant pouches?"

Mazuri turned from the rubbish port. "Yes, they are. Those cans must have come with the manufacturer or something…either that, or someone in supply was stupid enough to put a normal aluminum can on a carrier due for Outer Space." He opened the freezer cabinet door, tossed Walker a pouch that read 'Sprite', and closed it. 

"I see." Walker opened the cap of the pouch and began to suck through a straw, feeling mildly stupid. He turned to Dack. "Bishop?"

"Yes?"

"You know of this carrier has any sort of record computer or analyzing software?"

"Yea…in the cockpit, sir. Though I haven't figured out how to use it."

Walker reached into his locker and pulled out a small disk in a thin, plastic case from his norm suit. "I want to take a quick look at something." Using the locker as a solid surface, he pushed himself away and floated across the hold and into the cockpit. 

***

Three hours later, Walker was still taking a quick look at something. The cockpit hatch swung open, and Kirishima floated in, but not before hitting her head against the low doorframe. 

"Ow…" she muttered as she rubbed her head and looked up angrily at the metal hatch. Walker was sitting in front of a large console, staring at several monitors, perpendicular to the cockpit hatch. He didn't seem to notice her.

Kanna floated over. "Uh, sir…sorry to bother you."

"Don't be," he muttered, not taking his eyes off the monitors. "What's up?"

"Well…you've been in here for a few hours. In that time, Mazuri has lost three games and won four games of chess, and Dack has gone through all his lingerie magazines." She took a look at the screen. "We were going to make a betting pool if you were actually just looking at pornography…" she said. "But knowing you, we figured it would be pretty unlikely.

Walker didn't respond immediately, but pointed at the right screen with his right index dinger. "You see this?"

"Huh?" She bent over. Walker hit a button on the console that had a small sticker in English reading 'Play' underneath it. "What's this?"

"It's the recorded flight data and video from the mobile dolls," he answered. "Sort of like a black-box, but with visual sensors as well." The monitor displayed the view of an object falling down a shaft slowly and staring into blackness. It played forward until a point, then rewound backwards, plagued with white lines as it did so. 

"You see this?" he asked, circling a dark spot at the bottom left corner of the screen with his index finger.

Kanna narrowed her eyes and squinted at the screen. Black dots. "See what?"

Walker pushed the play key, but stopped early this time, pausing it. He circled it again. Kanna squinted once more, and discovered he was in fact right: there appeared to be a yellowish dot there of some sort. It only appeared for around two seconds, according to the time display at the corner of the screen, before disappearing. 

"At first, I didn't notice it. Not immediately, anyway," he admitted, pushing a key on the console. The specific area of the screen where the dot had been was zoomed into, and the yellow dot grew into a dim yellow blur. 

"There's definitely something there." She turned to Walker. "What is it?"

Walker hung his head back and took a deep breath indifferently, then leaned forward and punched another key. "Check out the Infrared sensors."

The screen's color changed drastically, and the sheer depth of the corridor became evident. The walls were dark, deep red. But that didn't really concern Kanna as she stared at what was down the hallway. 

"Infrared," began Walker. "Is fairly straightforward. It works to detect infrared radiation that sometimes coincides with heat sources, and since it is less radioactive then our electromagnetic spectrum of colored light, the results are in shades of red. In Outer Space, there is very little heat, but what there is shows up very clearly"

Kanna blinked, then pointed a finger at the screen. "But…how?"

Walker sighed again, looking at the revealed object. "Some of the soldiers in the Alliance Space Armada are very clever, it would appear." He zoomed into the revealed figure.

It was a large, maroon-colored Leo with a bright-red camera eye where the yellow blur had been. It was crouched in such a position behind one of the notches of the corridor that it was visible only for a few seconds, with its 105mm cannon. 

"After all, it seems as though they've managed to make a stealth Leo."

***

"A _stealth _Leo?" asked Mazuri, leaning forward. "You mean, not just one equipped with a sensor jamming suite, but an actual _stealth _Leo?" He turned to Bishop, who was sitting to his right. "Is that possible?"

Bishop frowned and shrugged. "I dunno. I'm just a pilot. 'Course, I don't think you can make a Leo invisible."

Walker shook his head. The entire team was assembled in the main hold, with Walker using a overhead projector to cast a schematic of the standard Space-Capable Alliance Leo onto the wall. He pointed at it with his light pen. 

"It's not cloaked or invisible," he reminded them. "Really, it's a combination of superior training and slightly modified surface structure. I mean _slightly_." He turned to the schematic. "Chances are they still have the violet Alliance color theme on them."

Mazuri crossed his arms. "Well, I'll tell you what I know…that _superior training _doesn't exist on Earth. Leo's _aren't _supposed to be stealth weapons. Mobile suits in general aren't. I mean, it's kind of difficult to hide a sixteen-meter-tall behemoth, particularly if you're just standing out in the middle of nowhere, in plain sight." 

"Well, Outer Space is a totally different environment," Walker explained. "In fact, it's two: there's the 'floating around with no cover' environment of Outer Space, and then there's the 'close quarters municipal hell' environment of the Colonies. That close quarter environment not only provides _excellent _cover, but many positions for possible ambushes…probably why those guys are still alive."

"You know it's a Alliance Leo team," muttered Mazuri. "But if they're dangerous because of their skill, do you know who the pilots are?"

Walker began floating away from the projector. "Kanna has done some research on the matter, actually." 

Kanna floated up and took Walker's place. "Actually, yes." She took out a small electronic device from her pocket and pressed down on it. The projected image changed to a young man with a tanned complexion and dark brown hair. 

"Muhammad Umar-Safia,. Born, AC One-Seven-Seven, assumable somewhere in the Former-Kuwaiti Sector of Arabia. We're unsure because he had his name changed when he was fourteen to Muhammad Mariam Umar-Safia shortly before he joined the Alliance Middle Eastern Army. Only the name Mariam is considered legitimate, as it is the name of his wife."

"I suppose that explain," commented Mazuri. "Why his name is a combination of _extremely _common names. And I thought 'Christopher Walker' was common enough."

Walker nodded in agreement as Kanna continued. "Graduated top of his class, remained in the Middle East. Was declared chief ace of the Middle Eastern Army, with a confirmed twenty-eight non-mobile suit kills and seven mobile suit kills, as of AC-One-Nine-Two. Was invited to join the Special Corps in AC-One-Nine-Three, but politely declined, as he wanted to stay as close as possible to his family in Kuwait. Was married in AC-One-Nine-Four to Gabriel Mariam…"

"Mobile suit kills? You mean the Maganauc Corps in Arabia?" asked Walker.

"What's he doing in space if he wanted to stay with his family?"

"I'm getting to that!" retorted Kanna. "His family resided in the Alliance Garrison at Kuwait, back in early A-C-One-Nine-Five." She paused. "I suppose you all know what happened to it." 

Walker grimaced. Kuwait had been the landing location of the Gundam-Zero-Four, before _Daybreak_. The same Gundam that, with the help of the rogue Maganauc Corps, destroyed the Kuwaiti Garrison, and a majority of the Pro-Alliance civilians in Kuwait, then would go on to destroy four Specials Mobile Suit Teams and the East Wing of the Corsica Manufacturing Plant. He had been among those Specials Soldiers, and suddenly felt uncomfortably close to this Space-Leo ace. "Go on."

"Everything seems to show that he was a really nice guy up until then. Received several commendations for bravery beyond the call of duty, as well as praise from General Ventei."

"Ventei, eh?" commented Bishop. He let out a long whistle. "Impressive."

"When he received word that his entire family was probably a blood stain on the foot of a Maganauc Corp MS, he sort of…well…snapped. Rather then remain in the Middle East with the painful memories, he asked to be relocated into Outer Space, maybe to vent his anger on a few Colonists. He was transferred to Septem's personal guard, the A-Company of the First Alliance Cosmo-Army."

"Must have been good," said Mazuri. "Real good."

"He was. In fact, I think this guy could easily give you a run for your money, Maz-chan." She turned to the overhead and pushed down on the electronic device again, and the projected image changed. This time, it was a long, scrolling list of names. "Held responsible for the deaths of an estimated four hundred Colonists, mostly civilians but also a lot of crazy radicals."

There was a pause. "That's a lot of Colonists."

"He developed a reputation of brutal efficiency. Not the sadistic type, as much as he just didn't like the Colonists. Septem made him his 'Controller General', and that nickname as stuck on ever since." The list of scrolling names finished, and the projector switched off. "He and his team are unaccounted for, and if those MD records are correct, they're residing in Colony L-One Dee-Oh-Four-Four-Two-Nine-Eight. The entire team is just three Alliance Leos…nothing that remarkable. It's their pilots that are the problem. They're the 27th Space-Leo Team, probably better known as…"

"The Controllers…" said Mazuri calmly, finishing for her.

Kanna blinked her eyes. "Hai."

"It's a horrible nickname, if you ask me. Still, I heard about them a lot at Nairobi, right before Daybreak. The latest Aces of the Alliance Spacies." He smirked. "All those commanders kept blabbering that we should try to be like them." 

"Not possible, but now's our chance to see if we're better." Walker unplugged the projector and stored it. "Now, the question is, what kind of fight are we in for? The OZ Interstellar Mobile Suit unit, with the best equipment available to any army in history, versus the best of the dying Alliance Space Armada." 

Walker paused. "So, we have two options: we can wait for some backup in the form of a MD squad held in a nearby Pro-OZ colony, and risk having Umar's group relocate if they know we've found them. Or…" He swallowed. "Or we can go for the Controller General now, alone. Three OZ Taurus's versus three Alliance Leo's."

He floated over and sat down on a metal folding chair. "I want you three to decide. We can head towards the Colony, and transmit our report to the Colonel later, or we can forget about the entire thing. Let the mobile dolls get them." 

Another pause, and Kanna nodded. "Technology is on our side, sir. We're not so sure about skill…this would be a way to determine that."

Walker nodded. "Of course." He looked forward. "Any objections?"

"I joined OZ," said Mazuri slowly. "Primarily because I liked my job and I wanted to keep it, even if the name changed. This Arabic man, on the other hand, felt enough loyalty to the Alliance to retain one of the most hazardous occupations in the Earth Sphere." He sat back and crossed his arms. "I'd like to see how OZ is going to treat him, as oppose to a Kenyan man who willingly defected." 

"I'm going to pretend I understood that…" muttered Bishop rather unhappily.

"Bishop, are you in?" Walker asked, turning his head towards him.

Dack blinked. "…you're…you're asking _me_?"

"Well, you _are _still a member of this team, remember," Walker said indifferently. "Besides, as carrier pilot, you are responsible for all long-range operations. In transport, our lives are in your hands. That much is very clear." 

Bishop blinked his eyes. "….oh…all right…well…since its impossible to actually fit a Taurus SMS carrier into the Colony catacombs, I'll be in the safety of hanging around outside." He put his arms behind his head. "I'm in."

Walker nodded. "Then it's agreed. I'll lead the team into Colony though one of the exterior hatches…probably one on the non-Earth side gate…I imagine they won't be expecting us. We'll have to wait till we're there to make final preparations…without any recon data from Barge, we'll be doing this on the seat of our pants." 

Kanna nodded. "And nothing…nothing is worse then fighting aces in the blind."

***

A Taurus SMS carrier moved in at approximately twenty kilometers outside the Colony ring structure. Transport Officer Bishop refused to get in any closer, explaining that the were venerable to any fixed emplacements the Former-Alliance may have set up on the actual Colony. 

It was agreed upon, and the carrier's three Taurus's were launched. Lieutenant Walker filed this as a 'routine security assignment', though even with something as indecisive and vague as this, there was a risk: the Colonists were less then thrilled about Taurus's marching around when it didn't appear necessary. 

In their streamline modes, then veered towards the Colony. Mazuri identified what was most likely a exterior hatch, and they reverted to mobile and landing with their feet against the Colony. 

"We blast it open with our beam rifles," explained Mazuri. "And they won't hear it. They will, however, detect the energy surge and the superheated metal. Even the oldest Leos have sufficient provisions to perceive that."

"Agreed, we'll use laser torch. Good thinking, Officer."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

The command-variant Taurus crouched down towards the hatch, and a small compartment opened on its right forearm. A relatively small appendage extended from it and fired a high-intensity blue laser beam. Carefully, Walker cut around the seams of the hatch, then retracted the appendage back into his arm. Walker turned in his cockpit, pressed his finger against the touch-sensitive display screen, selected the mobile suit hands, and switching on the internal electro-magnets. 

"I'll lift the hatch up," he said over the encrypted channel. He pressed the Taurus's violet hands against the loosened metal hatch, which immediately stuck against it, magnetized, and began to lift it up. Slowly, carefully, the hatch was moved to just enough space to move the large frame of a SMS through it. "Who wants to go first?"

Pause. "Fine, I'll go," Kirishima muttered. "Better I die then the Ace or the CO." Using her verniers, she maneuvered through the opened hatch which led into one of the countless corridors in the labyrinth that made up the Colony's exterior wall. Engaging heat sensors on the viewscreens, she brandished her beam rifle.

"Seems clear. I've got nothing for half a click."

"Great." Walker dropped through the hatch, followed shortly by Mazuri. The two grabbed their own beam rifles, which had been mounted on the forward torso of the Taurus, and assumed position. 

"Pretty dark in here," commented Mazuri.

"I know. Engage thermal-optics."

Pause. "I knew that."

"…"

"Let's cut the chatter, people. An encrypted frequency isn't encrypted if the people using it keep talking." Walker pressed part of the display with his index finger, which engaged thermal-optics. The problem with touch-sensitive screens was that in space, you wore a normal suit: this, in turn, meant that you were more then likely wearing norm suit gloves, which had a habit of covering your fingerprints. So, instead, each of the index fingers of both gloves was given a small chip, which acted like a digital fingerprint. 

With thermal-optics, the hatch appeared even darker, with the exception of a few super-hot pipes surrounded by layers of insulation that showed up clearly on the optical sensors. With exaggerated caution, they slowly marched down the corridor

"You know what this reminds me of, Kanna?" asked Mazuri.

"What?"

"That movie…_Loveless_…you ever seen it?"

In her cockpit, Kanna smiled and nodded. "Yea, I saw it. Who hasn't?"

_I haven't_, thought Walker to himself. "Still nothing," he announced, reading the display. "Stay alert."

They marched down the corridor uninterrupted for some time, until a blip on the display announced something. Walker raised the left arm of his Taurus in a fashion, instructing them to stop. 

"What's up?" asked Kirishima, pulling back slowly on the flight-sticks. 

"The corridor opens up into larger chamber about two-hundred meters ahead…some sort of machine workshop that was used by the Colonists, I guess. Not sure." He checked the scanners. "There's a lot of metal in their, but its mostly iron and nickel. Still not a bad place for an ambush, though."

"Can you just use that beam cannon of yours to blast through?" asked Mazuri, from directly behind Walker.

"Negative. I don't want to blow a hole in the side of a civilian colony, like last time. Even if its just in the interior structure. Use beam rifles only."

"Easy for you to say…you're the only one with something besides a beam rifle." 

"Cut the chatter, Ace." Walker switched off the com and sighed. Moisture from his breath condensed on the visor of his helmet, and he immediately tried to wipe it with his glove, only to realize that it was on the inside. "Let's just keep moving…watch for any readings."

The end of the corridor came into view, where it was blocked by a large, metal blast door. The door was unadorned, with the exception of an access panel directly to the left. 

"You know the passcode?" asked Kanna. 

"Negative. Don't need it, either." Walker pressed his empty left SMS hand against the access panel, palm first, and immediately opened the Taurus's processing computer. "I sort of wish we had a professional hacker though," he admitted over the channel as he watched numbers scroll down his display. 

000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 82132 29033005 1822 04261013 

08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 8

2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 000 

321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 8 2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08  
031621 1822 000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 82132 29033005 1   
822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 032629 04261037 18  
3016 06180 8 2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 0003

Walker gave a sigh and hit the transmit button underneath the scrolling buttons. The code showed up on both of the other Taurus's display screens.

"…well, this makes a whole lot of sense," commented Kanna. "Computer code."

"You know, in Before Colony times," explained Walker. "…computers use to 'think' in a much simpler two-number code, using ones and zeros. Turned out that was too easy to hack, so all computers were switched over to a new system using ten numbers. A lot of work, but it really ticked off Before Colony hackers. And for almost two-hundred years, we've been designing computers too complex to hack."

"Until now," chuckled Mazuri as he watched the numbers scrolled past. "So, this is programming information running through the lock systems once they're activated…"

"Basically. It's more than random discharge…at least, I hope it is. The Taurus' computer system has done the hard put, it seems." Walker stared at the numbers scrolling down the screen, reflected on his helmet. They hadn't stopped. "…all right, I see a pattern."

"You do?"

"Yes…it's definitely not random. Not anymore, anyway. Look for yourself." He pointed at the display, though he knew the others could see him. "It starts with the three zeros, then ends with six-three-two…see?"

000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 82132 29033005 1822 04261013 

08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 8

2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 000 

321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 8 2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08  
031621 1822 000321252632 032629 04261037 18 3016 06180 82132 29033005 1   
822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 000321252632 032629 04261037 18  
3016 06180 8 2132 29033005 1822 04261013 08031621 1822 033013130432 0003

"Well…I'll be damned. Still, what does it tell us?"

"It's the combination, though we have to resend it through the computer and through the proper computer channels." Walker pressed a his gloved finger against the display. "I was an engineer….not software technician, mind you." 

Slowly, the door began to lift up on its hydraulics, and Walker carefully maneuvered his camera to look through. "Other then static equipment, nothing on the scanners. The walls are absorbing most of the sensor readings by themselves, unfortunately." He slowly stepped in, followed by the other two SMS. "I'm starting to wonder if we went through all this trouble for nothing…"

***

From a metal pipe sticking out of the chamber wall, a pilot clad in a brown Alliance norm suit looked through his binoculars at the two huge black OZ SMS. He touched the side of his helmet.

"Activate mines!" 

Inside a mobile suit cockpit, in almost total darkness, another pilot clad in similar norm suit nodded and pressed a metal button on his control surface. "Sir!"

The first pilot turned around and sprinted, crawling into a small shaft in the wall before the Taurus could see him. 

***

"I don't like this," commented Mazuri from his cockpit. "Yea, this is definitely bothering me." 

"No kidding," muttered Kanna, shaking her helmet. "We'd better head back."

The right leg of her mobile suit slowly lifted and stepped backwards. A few meters from where it landed, a small, cylindrical canister flashed its green light. 

"What the…?"

Several explosions formed at Kanna's feet, catching her off guard. A floor plate was blasted upwards, scratching the Taurus' until now unharmed black paintjob. "Shit! Mines!" 

Walker turned his mobile suit to face Kanna as quickly as he could. "Kanna, stand still!"

Behind him, a violet mobile suit broke through a weakened section of the chamber's wall, riding on its vernier booster-pack. It's camera eye flashed. 

"Whaddaya know?" taunted the pilot with a very clear satisfaction. "You Specials brats fell for one of the oldest tricks from _Mobile Suit One-Oh-One._ Looks like changing your name didn't make you any smarter." 

"Oh, shut up!" yelled Mazuri as he braced himself on the floor and opened fire with his beam rifle. 

The mobile suit, a violet Leo, rolled to its right and crouched over, using the chunk of wall as cover. Laying on its stomach, it began to fire with its own lower-power beam rifle. 

"Shit!" yelled Walker, his mobile suit rocking as some of the Leo's beam fire hit it. "It doesn't matter how weak that beam rifle is…if we don't find cover, we're still dead!" His mobile suit lurched again. "Kanna, can you get up?"

Inside her cockpit and inside her norm suit, Kanna was drenched in sweat. A coolant pipe had broken, and the heat from the SMS's fusion reactor directly behind her seat was rapidly becoming a problem. "Negative sir," she said apologetically. "My right leg is completely disabled." She twisted her flighsticks, raising her own beam rifle, and began firing from the ground. "But they're not getting me without a fight…" 

Passing through the hole in the wall, another Leo came around to support its friend. The first pilot. This one wielded a 105mm cannon, equipped with a radar disk at the tip. He ducked behind the large chunk of wall and began firing shells. 

Walker quickly fired up his verniers, dodging the beam fire and 105mm streams like raindrops, and spun around to entrance of the chamber, using the corridor as cover. He tried to get as clear a shot as he could at one of the Leo's. _I can't believe it…pinned down by two Alliance Leos…it really does come down to skill. _"Mazuri!" he yelled out into his helmet.

"Yea?" Mazuri had wisely crouched himself near the far wall, almost out of the Leo's firing ranges. Almost. 

"Any suggestions?" Walker fired again, causing one of the Leo's to have to quickly shift to its left to avoid being shot apart. "I mean, as a Former-Alliance ace?"

"…actually, yes." Mazuri fired his verniers and began dodging shots as Walker had done earlier. "Rush them!"

"That's your plan?" yelled out Walker, disappointed. 

"…sir…bzzzz…."

Walker blinked and turned his attention to his headset. "Who is this? Bishop, is that you?"

"…bzzz….sir! What's going on over there?"

"Dack, call back later!" he yelled as he switched off the channel. _All right, rush them…sounds easy enough…_It only took one beam to a Leo's chest to destroy or cripple it…Walker spun out from the wall, 105mm shells hurtling past him. _I've only got a few seconds to do this…damn! _With the Taurus' two cross-hair HUD targeting system, all he really had to do was line up the normal enemy-targeting reticule, a small four-corner bracket, with the beam rifle reticule, a small square (the beam cannon's reticule was represented by a very wide circle on the HUD). _Come on!_

It took about half a second to get the flashing square reticule onto the red triangle reticule. Range was immediately calculated, as well as target information. The twin reticules changed into a bright red reticule. A stream of 105mm shells tore into his right torso, causing him to almost loose balance, and he fired. A single, very precise beam was emitted from the tip of the beam rifle, flashed towards the Leo, and caught it in the chest. It tore through and disappeared into the chamber wall, leaving the Leo crumbling to the ground. 

Kanna, focusing on something else all together, aimed and fired as beam fire began to blast apart the entire bottom half of her SMS. A single shot caught the Leo in the left arm, and it immediately lost grip of its beam rifle. Mazuri leveled his own beam rifle and fired as well, blasting off the Leo's entire head. 

Smoke rapidly spread into the thin air left in the Colony, and it lurched backwards, tossing its beam rifle to the side, with a high-pitched but audible 'clang'. Mazuri's Taurus fired up its verniers a last time, floated over to the wreckage behind the chunk of Colony wall, and he opened the channel.

"Listen, Alliance pilots. I know you can hear me," he said, gloatingly. "You know this whole thing about trapping us with proximity mines?"

He paused, waiting for a response. All that came back was static. But something told him the pilots weren't dead. He began to laugh and aimed his beam rifle downwards. "You guys are really, really good. I mean it…" he said, crackling over the channel. Suddenly he stopped. "Bye, guys." He lined up the crosshairs and fired two precise shots Leo cockpits, causing craters in titanium. He disengaged the verniers and fell to the ground, directly in front of the wall wreckage.  

Kanna took a deep breath in her cockpit, then activated her headset. "Mazuri, is the target neutralized?"

Pause. "Affirmative. Target neutralized." 

"Good," she nodded, before checking the electronic display on her spacesuit forearm. Somewhere in her suit a leak had broken out, and there was an atmosphere inside the SMS cockpit. She twisted the locking mechanism on her neck and yanked the helmet off, and took a deep breath of the air. It was still hot inside the cockpit due to the coolant problem, but it was much cooler then inside her spacesuit. She brushed her sweating hair out of her eyes, then checked her displays. 

"Guys, listen…I got a problem. Besides not being able to walk at the moment, it's like a sauna inside here…" She looked around. Mist was visibly forming at the top of the cockpit and on the displays. "Busted a coolant pipe, and its leaking outside my SMS. Can you guys see it?"

Walker stepped away from the corridor and zoomed in. Sure enough, small blue, spherical bubbles were wobbling out from a plate in the side. "One of the mines probably knocked an armor plate with a sharp surface…" he said. "Ripped the coolant pipe. You're lucky it's not an internal leak…you would have frozen to death instantly." 

"That's good to know." She pulled on her helmet again, locked it, then opened the Taurus hatch. The humid air rushed out, and she stood up. "Now what?"

Walker stared at Kirishima's back from his SMS. "Well, we actually have another problem."

"And what's that?"

Walker stared at his displays as he inspected the Leo wreckage. "There are only two mobile suits here, and neither of them is equipped with command systems."

"Duh," commented Mazuri as he inspected his beam rifle. "That was obvious."

"All the same, we still need to find the Controller General," explained Walker.

"He could be hiding anywhere in this Colony…" Kanna pointed out.

"Lets' split up then. Cover more area."

"We can do more damage that way," muttered Walker, looking at the craters their beam rifles had left in the chamber walls. Besides the holes they had made, there were two more exits in the chamber, other then the one they had entered through. "Kirishima, you take the exit on the left…Mazuri, take the exit on the right.  I'll head back the way we came."

"We should try to maintain radio silence," offered Mazuri. "Just incase."

"All right then…radio silence until you've neutralized the Controller General."

Kanna fumbled around with the controls of her cockpit. "All right...I've managed to regain walking ability…it's only about half-speed though…"

"Better then nothing. Move out."

***

Inside his cockpit, Alliance Corporal Umar-Safia stared blankly at the displays, as the 4th Interstellar began to divide and vanish from the scanners. Both of his teammates were dead, and as disheartening as this was, it was a fairly minor setback. 

He leaned forward slightly on his flight-sticks and began to stand up in the cramp corridor he resided in. _Well, I'd hate to disappoint them. Might as well go to the nearest OZ and get rid of him_.

He checked his diagnostics, loaded a magazine into his dobergun, and set off.  

***

Walker marched unceremoniously down the corridor, still brandishing his beam rifle. He adjusted his helmet and stared at the scanning display. Nothing. _Who knows…maybe he doesn't exist._

That would have been ironic, wouldn't it, he mused. The recently uncovered rumors of a surviving Alliance Space-Ace, the infamous Controller General, the slaughter of four hundred Colonists…all just an error on the part of an Alliance pencil-pusher. _That's ridiculous_, he told himself. You couldn't just create someone from scratch at the push of a button…it was a long and agonizing process. 

He came to another large, mobile-suit-size blast gate and paused, entering a code for it to open. The door slid open and Walker scanned the area with his targeting reticule, then stepped in. The cockpit went 'beep' as he entered a gravitational zone, and he felt himself pulled towards his seat. 

Cityscape. For a mobile suit, a Colony was basically made out of long corridors that seemed to connect to large opened chambers which, in tern, held to other corridors. That was the case until you reached the Colony Interior. Around him were unlit but neat little trees, streets and lamp posts.

There was another warning tone in Walker's cockpit, and he looked upwards blankly at the top of the forward display. Standing on top of a corner grocer was a violet Leo that had been out of his sight earlier. 

"Huh," he muttered. It was a normal Space-Leo, it seemed, wielding a dobergun which it had pointed directly at Walker. Slowly, he pressed a key to open the channel. "Hailing Alliance Leo. This is Lieutenant Walker of OZ, hailing the Alliance Leo."

Unexpectedly, he got a response. "I hear you, Lieutenant Walker," came a voice with a slight Arabic accent.  

"I'm going to come right out and say it," explained Walker, zooming in at the Leo with the camera's zoom lens. "This is probably the most terrified I've ever been of a Leo, particularly if you are the Controller General." If he fired now, he could probably seriously cripple the Leo. 

But there was still the dobergun. It could seriously damage him, even if the Leo missed by a few meters, as long as it struck the ground he was standing on. 

"I'm honored to hear that," replied the voice. As unassuming as it did sound, there was a faint hint of sarcasm behind it. "Anything else you'd like to say? Any propositions you'd like to make me?"

Walker paused. "No, can't think of any. Should we begin?"

This time, the response didn't come over the channel. It came through the air. The Leo leapt off the top of the grocer. Walker reacted immediately, swinging to his left into the main avenue. _It's just like St. Petersburg_, he told himself, gritting his teeth. _Just a lot faster._

"You're pretty fast, for a Leo," he commented. Leaving a large crack in the street behind him, Walker stood his Taurus up and began firing repeatedly at the area he once was. The Leo hit the ground, fast enough and with enough mass to cause the street to crumble beneath it, then sought cover behind the grocer as the beam fire turned it into a cloud of shrapnel. 

The Taurus stopped firing and Walker scanned the cloud of dust with his targeting reticule. "Where are you?" 

The violet Leo parted through the cloud and aimed its dobergun with both hands, then fired. A bright yellow shell flew past Walker, close enough for Walker to hear it though his helmet, and struck a building, demolishing it. Walker tried to turn around to see where the shell had landed when the Controller General aimed and fired another shot. 

_Break!_ The Taurus fell backwards, at the same time activating its vernier thrusters. It carved a trench down the street, shuddering violently from side to side as it went. Walker could see the Controller General, but he couldn't get a steady shot at him with all the shaking. 

The Leo ran after him, as a few misaimed beams went past it, firing shots as it ran. Neither of them could aim particularly well under the given circumstances, though the dobergun shells came dangerously close to the Taurus before detonating against street-side buildings. Walker kept firing until he navigated himself around a street corner and ground to a stop against a large, wheeled vehicle. 

Walker shook his head and removed his helmet, breathing air from the Colony. "Note to self…don't do that…" He wasn't completely sure, but he felt as though he had broken a rib while he was street-skiing, and his side hurt like hell. He put his helmet back. 

Directly to his right, an explosion blew a crater in the street and reduced one of the small buggies owned a Colonist into separate vehicular-molecules, and he immediately stood up, then grabbed the larger vehicle and held it in front of him. Another shell slammed into it, knocking the Taurus back and disintegrating the vehicle. He rearmed his dobergun and attempted to fire in the direction where the shots had come from, between two buildings a few hundred meters off. 

"Your normality is your weakness!" explained the Leo pilot. Walker looked up to see the Leo coming down at him again, firing indiscriminately with its dobergun. None of the shots came even close to hitting the SMS, but they did blow holes in the street, bellowing with shattered particles of concrete. 

Walker grinned. "Hiding in the dust, huh?" _And I'm the normal one…_Walker turned to the only other area large enough for a Leo to pass through, the alley between two apartment buildings, and scanned it with his reticule. _He's out of dobergun ammo…wants to come in close…_

The only warning he heard was a chinking noise to his right, as a large metallic object was hurled his direction, knocking him severely and forcing him to lean forward to retain balance. Walker caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a long barrel. "You're kidding me…"

From the cloud of dust came the violet Leo, at nearly two hundred kilometers an hour (according to Walker's sensors) with its thruster pack. It impacted with Walker, knocking him cleanly through a building. 

"You see?" the Controller General taunted. "You took the most obvious response! Just like any normal soldier!" 

Walker couldn't answer. Shaking around in his cockpit, he smacked his head against the starboard display screen, cracking his helmet slightly. He only stopped when both mobile suits struck the Colony Interior Wall, several meters of reinforced titanium and steel. 

_I didn't think Leo's were capable of that. _He blinked. It wasn't just his imagination, his vision was definitely developing a reddish-tint. 

The Leo stood back, only shaken since the Taurus had absorbed most of the energy from the impact, and reached into its shoulder-mounted shield. With a swift motion, it pulled out a beam saber and lit it, a blade of shimmering red-pink coming from the tip. 

Walker stared at his flickering screen. Most of his systems were already down, but he paid no attention to the flashing red lights on the diagnostics display. Instead, he just stared ahead at the forward display, at the violet Leo, thinking. What had it been that Zechs had once told him…to avoid circumstances when you knew you were going to loose? Or had that been Otto? Why couldn't he think straight? He began to hang his head down, retaining his death grip on the twin flight-sticks. 

In addition, his mobile suit still had a deaf grip on his beam rifle. Leaning forward on the right flight-stick, he raised it and fired it once, missing. The violet Leo brought its arm up, knocked the beam rifle away, and drove the beam saber through the Taurus' head. 

In Walker's cockpit, everything became much darker then it had been. The Leo withdrew its beam saber, discarded it to the side, and began to manually strike the Taurus' cockpit hatch with its fist. In his cockpit, Walker began lurching again. _Great, this again…_

"What…what are you waiting for?" he asked into the headset, his entire body sore. The communication system was one of the few that still worked. "Playing games?"

"Sort of," the voice admitted. He pulled his fist back and struck once more, this time, causing the front of the cockpit to cave in. The glass from the displays and monitors shattered, showering Walker and his norm suit. "I was hoping that the commander would be a bit more of a challenge." 

"I'm sorry that I'm not," he admitted sarcastically, reached forward, and broke open a panel on his control surface. Underneath it was a keypad, and he began to punch in a special five-number combination. He broke radio silence. 

_Good luck, Mazuri_, smiled Walker. _I hope you do better against this guy then I did. _

And with that, Walker let himself plummet into darkness.

***

Inside his cockpit, the Controller General put his hands together and rested his helmet against them. Ahead of him, the black Taurus stopped sparking and died, finally letting go of its beam rifle. 

"No point in leaving you here, I suppose," he muttered, maneuver his flight-sticks. He gingerly lifted the Taurus SMS, dragged it through the gate it had originally come in, and dropped it unceremoniously on the ground. "So…this is OZ's Lieutenant. At least one of them, anyway. Not much of a challenge…just time consuming." He looked down at his display. "And ammo consuming. No point in even getting the dobergun back, at this rate."

He reached forward and activated his scanning system. "Two more…moving through the corridors. Shouldn't be too hard. I'm surprised the others couldn't take them," he muttered after finding the beam saber he had discarded. 

***

Trying to remain calm, Mazuri sang to himself softly as he marched through the corridors. There was a beeping from his control surfaces, and he nearly jumped.

_Calm down, Mazuri. It's just one Alliance Leo. That's all._

He pressed the screen. Encrypted transmission. _No sound?_

Pressing the screen again, he received it. Number combination. 5-5-0-9-9. His heart sank. 

Walker was dead. At least, if the transmission was accurate, he was. 

He didn't have much of an opportunity to think about it, however. More beeping, though this time it was an alarm. 

"Huh?" He turned around and looked at the corridor behind him. "No…you've _got _to be kidding me…" 

The bright red end of a beam saber was melting through a wall. Not melting, actually, so much as cutting. 

_Oh, shit_. Instinctively, Mazuri raised his beam rifle and fired repeatedly at the beam saber, blasting out a section of the wall. To his right, a bright red light cleanly cut through the opposite wall in a complete circle, and a large, metallic violet foot kicked its way through. 

_It was all just a disctraction!_ Mazuri tried to re-aim his beam rifle, but the violet Leo fired up its thrusters and began to swing its beam saber at it madly. Several times the blade came very close, grazing the armor-platting on the Taurus' forearms, which Mazuri attempted to use as makeshift shields. The two proceeded down the corridor, in the direction Mazuri had come from. 

"Ha! You've got much better reactions then your Lieutenant," exclaimed the violet Leo. "But I bet you're not ready for this!" 

The violet Leo stopped, with the Taurus' back to the corridor wall, and tossed his beam saber aside. Mazuri followed it with his reticule, but quickly returned to the earlier location, only to find the Leo missing. _Shit!_

"You've got to learn to be more flexible!" he yelled out. He released the locking device on his shield and hurled it at Mazuri. The makeshift-discus stuck the Taurus in the chest and knocked it backwards against the wall, causing system failures. The black SMS made a clumsy grab for the discarded beam saber. 

"Now you're getting the idea," acknowledged the Leo Pilot. "But it's still too late!" Using the beam saber as a spear, he drove forward towards the Taurus cockpit. Mazuri choked and leaned forward on both flight-sticks, initiating a short thruster burst. 

The beam saber cut through easily, and the pilot let go of it, the MS hand twisting. He grabbed onto whatever made resistance and began to pull out. A horrible twisting and ripping sound would have been heard. The violet Leo pulled its fist all the way back, and held in its hand a large piece of the Taurus' internal systems.

Sweating, Mazuri stared at the floor of his cockpit, then slowly looked up. There was no ceiling or monitor…just a large gap followed by the Taurus' shattered mono-eye. He stared up in horror, as the Taurus began to activate emergency shutdown on its own. It very slowly fell to its knees and hung still. 

"Two down," mumbled the pilot. "It's over." In the Leo's palm, the piece of the Taurus' internal systems, specifically one of the fuel cells, sparked with life. "What?"

To answer him, the fuel caught alit and exploded.

***

On the sensor display in Kanna's cockpit, the small blip representing Mazuri vanished. Swallowing, she considered whether or not to break radio-silence.

At that moment, a cloud of dust raced in from behind her as it rapidly passed through the corridors. She instinctively turned to look. There were two corridors, and she couldn't figure out which one the dust cloud had come from.

"God damn it…which way will you come from?" she mumbled, scanning both corridors with her reticule. Nothing on the scanners, though they weren't intended for point-of-sight identification anyway. "Left, or right?"

From her side, a bright red flash cut past, shearing her beam rifle. Mercury, the substance used to carry electrical energy through the rifle, spilled out and formed bubbles as it floated slowly to the floor. Kanna turned, first right, then left. It had been a beam saber, thrown at her, or at least at the beam rifle. 

_I'm unarmed! Shit!_

Two MS-sized figures seemed to emerge from the dissipating dust cloud, and tackled the remaining OZ Taurus. Kanna hit the wall, eventually coming to a stop, and looked. 

"You!" she screamed. "What the hell?"

The Leo turned around, taking its time, and presented Kanna with something it was holding by the spine: a black Taurus. The Taurus' camera eye was shattered and its cockpit was crashed inwards. Kanna recognized its markings as the Lieutenant's Taurus.

She still held the damaged-beam rifle at the Leo, though she knew in the pit of her stomach it wouldn't fire. 

"Will you fire when the pilot might still be alive?"

Kanna blinked. It was from the Leo, not the Taurus. "You…you, are you the Controller General?"

No immediate answer. The two stared at eachother through their cameras. "Well?!"

"You'll die, and never know that," the voice calmly explained over the channel. "Never." After realizing the beam rifle was inoperable, he slung the Taurus against the wall. "Now, let's finish this!" he yelled.

"Arrgggghhh!" Kanna screamed in rage as she discarded the beam rifle and charged at the Leo with her verniers. It attempted to dodge and grab onto the Taurus, but Kanna recognized this as a commonly-used counter in human combat. "You think I'll fall for that?" she asked.

She spun around, gave the Leo a swift kick with her right leg as she flew past, and hit the wall. The Leo fell back, spreading its leg to maintain balance. Inside his cockpit, the pilot blinked. 

"Well…isn't this surprised…not many people can do something like that," he admitted. "Your companions certainly couldn't." The violet Leo stood there, its left arm blown off at the forearm from the fuel explosion and still emitting sparks. "I'm impressed."

"SHUT UP AND FIGHT ME!" 

The Leo gracefully stepped back with the help of its thruster pack as Kanna made another attack, this time using the SMS fists. She missed the Leo narrowly and instead hit the corridor wall, making a large dent in it. The Leo turned around and stared at the Taurus.

_She's stronger…I can't fight her like this…_The Leo stepped back to Walker's derelict Taurus, stepped on it with his left foot, and pulled free its better arm. The pilot laughed and charged Kanna again. "Millions of Euros of hardware…"

He brought the black arm down at Kanna, who raised her own forearm and deflected it. 

He raised it up again and tried from a different angle. "Twenty years of research and development…" 

He swung again, catching Kanna in a waist. She fall backwards in her cockpit, but saw an opportunity, and grabbed the Leo's ball-like shoulder joint.

"And we've been reduced to hitting each other with spare parts in combat," he mused to himself. "What a waste." He pulled backwards on the flight-sticks and broke free, as Kanna ripped off a large piece of the Leo's shoulder-armor.

The Leo stood there, staring at the Taurus again, its shoulder now raining sparks in addition to its arm. "Well…I didn't expect this…your companions were not very much of a challenge."

He expected to get a response, seeing how the OZ pilots seemed so talkative earlier, but he didn't get one. 

"Anyway, I suppose I should give you some of an answer. I am Muhammad Umar-Safia. I'm not saying I'm the Controller General or anything, but I am Umar-Safia." He turned towards Walker's Taurus. "You may go ahead and rescue your CO, if you'd like. I won't interfere."

Kanna blinked. "You're…you're kidding…"

"No, no, I swear I won't. I'd swear to God, but I'm afraid I'm not really a religious man, I'll admit. Sort of lost that sort of idealism some time ago."

Kanna smirked. "Don't you mean 'swear to Allah'?"

"My, my…you've certainly done your homework, haven't you?" 

"Hai."

"Well, I'm sure you Japanese have your own word for God, though I don't know it." The Leo stepped back. "Go ahead and do it, before I change my mind." _It'll give me time to make repairs…_

Kanna swallowed, secured her helmet, and opened the hatch. With a kick against the surface of her mobile suit, she floated over to the Taurus. As she approached it, it became increasingly unlikely that Walker could have survived…the damage to the cockpit was significant. _Well…I hope Mazuri's still alive, at least._

Using the grooves in the titanium armor formed by the repeatedly pounding, she scrambled up to the cockpit, and stopped. 

"Sir! Sir, are you still alive?"

No response. There impact with the Leo's fist had left the cockpit hatch uneven, and she could see through a part into it. Walker was still in his cockpit, not moving, his head to one side.

"Sir! Damn it, sir, if you're alive, say something!"

***

_You've got to wake up._

Why? 

_You've got to wake up. You can't just stay here. _

My head hurts.

_You've got to get up._

Again, why?

_Because you've stopped breathing. _

Walker opened his eyes. The first thing noticed was the immediate darkness, just as before. Then he noticed that it was not completely dark, and the visor of his space suit was cracked. He began to lift his head up against the restraints and look forward. 

"Sir! You're alive!" yelled a voice over his headset. "Thank god!" It was Kanna Kirishima. She turned around. "Sir, you have to move…the Leo's moving over here, but I still have my mobile suit. Can you move?"

_I can't breath…_

He really couldn't breath…something had happen to his lungs, which had caused them to collapse. It could have been numerous things…a tear in his spacesuit…carbon dioxide flowing through his filter…

Then he realized which one it was. It was all of the reasons, and one more: he was bleeding. His side was moist, and he could see small red bubbles floating around. He had probably been bleeding for a long time, but the suit had been cut by the shattering glass in his cockpit. _So, this is what it's like to die in Outer Space…_

Kanna groaned as she began to pull the hatch open wider, and stuck her arm out into it, once the gap was wide enough. "Sir! Come on! If you're just going to die here, at least tell me, so I can go save Mazuri!"

Walker thought about it. _No point in dying right here…or right now…there are others…Using his left hand, he released the restraints that bound him to his seat and groped around the control surfaces. Most of them felt broken. "Kanna, clear the hatch. I'm going to blow it," he muttered, short of breath. _

He found what he was looking for, a large ring with a tag on it, and pulled. Kanna saw what was happening and pushed herself out of the way just in time to see the Taurus' hatch blow off, and afterwards, Walker float out. Now in the light, she could see he was very badly beaten up. A thin reddish film coated the side-torso of his norm suit, it seemed. _Freezing blood…_She looked at his face.

"Sir…sir? Can you hear me?"

Walker didn't nod, but he did respond. "…yes…"

She sighed. "Well, at least your headset is still working." She tried to help him stand on the surface of the floor near the Taurus wreck. 

"…it's cold…" he commented. "Very cold."

Kanna frowned, and felt the side of Walker's suit. It seemed cold, though she wasn't completely sure. "I think your internal heater was broken or something…no…" she paused. "Oh crap." 

Air was escaping through the crack in Walker's helmet visor. _Probably not the best thing to bring up. _She looked around. "There." She pointed at a spot that might provide some shelter.

With a swift kick, she floated herself and Walker into a crevice in the wall. As soon as she made it, she set Walker against the wall. "How you feeling?"

"…"

"Sir!"

"Huh?" He seemed to stir awake again.

"How are you feeling?" she asked again, shaking him.

"Officer…stop shaking me…I've already gotten plenty of that…" He coughed, spitting blood onto his helmet visor. "I don't feel anything."

Sighing, Kanna nodded and stood up, floating herself towards the opened face of the crevice. She was definitely not a doctor…he had no idea how to do that sort of thing. Trying to see clearly through her helmet, she looked around. 

The violet Leo, whether or not it had been the watching her, was no longer there. She paused and tapped the side of her helmet. "Mazuri, you do hear me?" Wait. "Mazuri, respond."

No response.

"God damn it, Mazuri, if you can hear me, get your ass to respond! Are you near the Controller General?"

There was a buzzing sound over the channel. Mazuri's voice came in. "Na…negative…he's not here…I'm okay, in case you were wondering."

"What's the status on your suit?"

"…what, my normal suit or my mobile suit?"

"Your mobile suit!"

"It's useless." There was a faint kicking sound over the channel. "That maniac in a Leo ripped out my fuel cell with his _fist_…" He paused. "Kanna, there's something I should tell you about the Lieutenant."

"Yea, I know, he's right over here. And he's pretty badly wounded."

"He's alive?"

"Sort of…what did you think he was?"

"…never mind. How badly is he wounded?"

"He's bleeding in and outside his norm suit."

"Hold on…I'll be right there."

***

Using a small torchlight built into his helmet, Mazuri inspected the wound on Walker's side. He wiped away some of the red film to learn the blood  had crystallized. 

"Oh crap," he muttered, looking up.

"What?"

"Looks like he's ruptured his left kidney or something. Our problems not the bleeding…at this rate, it'll stop pretty soon. It's the fact that he's body is freezing." Mazuri tapped Walker's head, shifting it to the side. "There's definitely a leak here. Warm air is escaping."

"I can't see anything," muttered Walker into his headset. 

"Yea, I know, I know. You're eyeballs have probably already crystallized. That's the bad thing about dying in Outer Space," he pointed out as he sat Walker up. "Its usually very cold and very painful."

"Great," Walker moaned. 

"If you want to stay alive, sir, you're going to have to keep a better attitude than this."

"I _don't_ want to stay alive. I've gone blind, I can't feel below my waist, and one of my kidneys has been ruptured. Why the hell would I want to stay alive?"

"Well," commented Mazuri. "I certainly want you to survive. If you die, sir, Kirishima becomes our CO." 

Kanna made an expression in her helmet, and Mazuri tapped the side of his helmet. "We've got to get him out of here, before he goes into shock and trauma. Try to keep his head alleviated…make sure he doesn't go to sleep."

Kanna shrugged and lifted Walker up. "How do you know all this, anyway?"

The three began to float to the crevice's exit. "Before I joined the Alliance, I was…" He paused.

"Was a what?"

"Oh damn."

"Huh?" Kanna looked up, then craned her head slightly. Down the corridor, in the shadows, stood two more mobile suits. Space Leos, one carrying a 105mm cannon, the other a beam rifle. "Great…not again."

Mazuri quickly raised both his hands. "We surrender. We're totally unarmed." He turned to Kanna. "Throw out your pistol."

Kanna smirked. "Yea, sure." She reached into the holster on the outside of her norm suit and pulled out her pistol, spinning it in her finger. "Like I said, they're not taking me without a fight."

"Please tell me you're kidding." 

The Leo on the right lit up the search-torch in its yellow mono-eye, causing Mazuri's and Kanna's helmets to darken their visors automatically. It hailed them. "Attention, OZ Soldiers. We received a distress signal from your carrier pilot, Officer Bishop, saying you had been in radio silence for over half an hour."

_It's been that long?_ Kanna tapped the side of her helmet. "Who are you?"

"We're a emergency team, assembled from a nearby Colony in this Lagrange Point." The Leo stepped forward, rather clumsily, and would have tripped on its own foot had it not been in low gravity. Rather then Alliance violet, it was Royal blue, the color of almost all OZ Leos. 

Kanna watched, not impressed. _Definitely civilians from the Colonies_, she thought dimly. "Listen, our CO is badly wounded and bleeding, and he needs immediate medical attention. Can you help us?"

"Acknowledged. We can get him to a field-hospital we've set up in this Colony. Keep him alive until then."

The second Leo marched forward in a steadier manner, and proceeded to secure the area. Mazuri turned to Kanna. "Where's the Controller General?" he asked. 

She shrugged. "I dunno. He spoke a little bit, then disappeared. Claimed he was Umar-Safia, but said something about not being the Controller General." She shook her head. "I didn't understand it. Maybe you or the Lieutenant might have." 

"Well, we were both pushovers for him. That must mean that the Controller General's weakness is close-combat."

"I wouldn't say 'weakness'. He probably could have beaten me. In a Leo. And he didn't even have a beam saber."

"He's good, I suppose."

"He's very good."


	11. The Pain and the Burden

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 11_******

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gundam Wing or Sakura Wars, which are property of Bandai and ADV Films respectively._

OZ Officer Kanna Kirishima, all 202 centimeters of her, stood behind and above a podium, dressed in her full regalia, with the exception of her cap, which she couldn't find anyway and had probably lost somewhere in St. Petersburg. 

Periodically, there was the camera flash in her face, and she remained almost completely motionless, tying her white-gloved hands into knots behind her. She would wait until the all-Colonist press decided they'd had enough pictures of the same, unchanging person, then begin.

Eventually, the interval between camera flashes became fairly long, almost a full twenty-seconds, and she coughed into her right hand. "If you people are all quite done," she said in, what was for her, a very grating and annoyed voice. "We can begin." She looked up. "I am Warrant Officer Kanna Kirishima, of the 4th Interstellar Mobile Suit Team, C Company, of the 1st OZ Space Peacekeeping Forces Division."

She paused and tapped the microphone, wondering how she should begin. The Press Members were dead quiet, waiting for her to make the first move.

"I'll be answering any questions you might have and…"

And then they exploded. Kanna rolled her eyes until they were visibly in the back of her head. In the past week following the incident in Colony L1-D0442098, someone in the hospital or from the rescuing Leo team, probably an idealistic Colony brat, had leaked out to _BBC: Interstellar _that an OZ mobile suit team had nearly been destroyed in the line of duty, trying to stop the 'Controller General', who, Kanna had found out, who was known poetically as 'The Himmler of Lagrange Point One' by a majority of the local population. 

Ever since then, the 4th Interstellar had been hailed as self-sacrificing warriors, fighting for the safety and well being of the colonies. Walker himself was now known as having gone 'above and beyond the call of duty', and well-wishers were pouring into the hospital. OZ Higher Command, consisting primarily of Colonel Une, by herself, had also found out, of course, however, the 4th Interstellar had faired better then expecting: 'Ambassador' Une had publicly supported the 4th Interstellar for their 'acts of bravery', and denounced the Controller General, Muhammad Umar-Safia. 

"Officer Kirishima! Miss Kirishima!" yelled one anxious reporter from _BBC: Interstellar_, waving his pen around. 

Kanna sighed, and pointed at him. "You, in the back. Also, if you call me 'miss' once more, you _will_ regret it."

The reporter stepped back, blinked, and lowered his arm. "Uh…sorry. What's the situation with Lieutenant Chris Walker? Is he still in intensive care?"

Kanna mentally frowned, wanting to twist her expression. _Great…they know his given name now. Wonderful. _Unlike Mazuri, Walker had lost more then a just a mobile suit. His left kidney had been ruptured, and both his eyes, along with a majority of his face, had been inflicted with 'space-freeze', frostbite resulting from an air-leak in your helmet in Outer Space. All things considered, Walker had gotten out lucky, actually: he had been in an air-patch when his helmet began to leak. Air-patches where the occasional bubbles of super-dense air that would float around the corridors of a Colony's barrier-walls. 

"No comment," she muttered. "Next question…"

"Wait…'No comment' as in you don't know, or 'no comment' as in you're not going to tell us?" 

"No comment," she repeated, this time leaning forward and staring harshly at the reporter. Most Colonists, due to the environment they were born and grew up in, were not very largely built, and she had yet to see a Colonist taller then 170 centimeters. That didn't mean there weren't any, of course, but she was still easily the tallest person in the room, as well as the strongest. "Next question."

A woman was waiving her hand, and Kanna pointed at her. "Is Captain Umar-Safia still in the Colony at Lagrange Point One?"

Pause. "No comment." 

"But…"

"_I said_, 'NO COMMENT'," she repeated more insistently, and the female reporter sat down. Popping her gloved-knuckles, Kanna leaned back and looked around for the next person to silence. 

***

Mazuri and Bishop walked through the halls of the Heero Yuy Memorial Hospital, which, like countless other Colonial Hospitals, claimed to have been the first to bear the name of the Colonial Hero himself, Heero Yuy. Dack yawned tiredly, pulling off his cap and stretching his arms.

"Ahhh…hey, Mazuri, where do you think Kanna is?" he asked to his companion. The two had arranged to meet at the Hospital at a specified time, as usual, to check up on the condition of Lieutenant Walker, just as they had done every other day since the fight against the Controller General, nearly two weeks ago. It wasn't the most practical thing to do: the Lieutenant spent an overwhelming majority of his time in a comatose state, and the Nurse overseeing him had said that even if Walker was conscious, it wouldn't have helped. Besides having ruptured a kidney, Walker was blind in both eyes, perhaps indefinitely. 

Still, it was the only time where the four of them would meet, as they had been taken off active duty until the time of Walker's full recovery and had, for the most part, broken into three groups. Kanna would be left to herself, busy with the paperwork and red tape that she, as the chief NCO, had to deal with in Walker's absence. Mazuri and Bishop shared a very nice, very large luxury suite in the Hilton Hotel, paid for by appreciate Colonist citizens, spending most of their time goofing off and trying to meet with the more attractive, younger demographic of female Colonists. Bishop thought of it as a nice vacation from being the team's chauffeur, and Mazuri was hardly complaining. 

Mazuri shrugged indifferently. "Probably hooked by the Press. Damn paparazzi…you'd hope that the Alliance would have done something right and exterminated them."

"You think that's possible?" asked Bishop, amusingly. 

"There are no cockroaches in the colonies…why can't they do the same thing with reporters?" Mazuri paused as they passed a vending machine, kicked it with his foot, causing a _Coca-Cola Light_ to fall out of the hatch. He grabbed it and popped the top. "See the logic?"

"I suppose so." Dack stepped towards the machine, grabbed it, and began kicking it in addition. At first, nothing came out. He blinked, looked at Mazuri with his drink, and began rocking it. 

Mazuri rolled his eyes, took a sip of the soft drink, and turned his head. "Shit, Dack, stop it, Kanna's coming."

Dack stopped shaking the machine and spun around, to see Kanna, but not as he had ever seen her before. She was clad in full-dress, complete with a cape, but the uniform was rumpled, and her normally muscular, proud face was dilapidated, and at least three shades lighter, almost dark-peach. She held her duffle bag under her arm, her eyelids heavy. 

"…hey guys," she muttered. "Sorry I'm late."

"Kanna," exclaimed Mazuri, rushing forward. "What happened?"

She stared straight forward at the wall next to the vending machine. "…I spent the past six hours in a press conference."

Mazuri shifted to behind Kanna and nodded at Dack, as if to say _What did I say? _ He nodded in acknowledgement. "Those damn reporting scum," she muttered. "I can't believe the Lieutenant actually went through that sort of thing weekly in Russia." 

"Well, he's quite a man," muttered Mazuri, moving under Kanna's arm to her duffle bag. "Here, let me get this from you…ouf!" As soon as he unhooked the bag from Kanna's shoulder, it dragged him to the ground. Mazuri blinked, surprised. "What do you have in here?"

"Stuff," she mumbled. "How is he, anyway?"

"Dunno," commented Bishop, still holding on to the vending machine. "We were going to go check on him."

Kanna nodded, picking up her duffle bag with one arm, and lifting Mazuri along with it. "Right, let's go." She clumsily strolled off, Mazuri quickly behind her. 

Dack remained at the machine and hit it a few more times, determined to get a free beverage, before Kanna reappeared behind him. She tiredly pushed him aside with her left arm and slammed the fist into the machine, breaking through the plastic surface, then pulled free a drink, and handed it over to Dack.

"Satisfied?" she asked, groggily. 

Dack had actually wanted a _Sprite_, but he realized he wasn't in a position to complain. He nodded. 

"Now, come on, before someone accuses you of trying to copulate the vending machine, all right?" she asked tiredly.  

***

In the darkness of Colony L1-D0442098, a man clad in a brown norm suit oversaw the work of a dusty, mechanical crane. In front of him, inside a maintenance pit over a dozen meters deep, stood OZ-06MS Leo Space-Type. Its violet paint-job was scratched, and the cranes focused on the left arm.

Captain Muhammad Mariam Umar-Safia adjusted his helmet and pressed another button on the control panel, and pulled back a lever. A second crane lifted an identical Leo arm, salvaged from his second-in-command's Leo, and began to move it into place, while the first crane began to disassemble the derelict left arm. 

He looked up at it, as the original arm was slowly removed. He hated being reduced to having to salvage parts from his fallen comrades. Still, they had made a pact, that the last of them should use whatever advantages they could to prolong their lives. Umar-Safia just didn't know it would have been him.

Besides, he had to get the corpses out of the Leo's anyway. Give them a proper funeral. 

In his helmet, the Captain sighed as the second crane moved the better arm into place and the first crane began to lock it into place. He lightly touched the electronic-interface system, and the Leo registered the new arm.

_Well, I've fixed the arm_, he thought. Now he had to remount the shoulder-armor, beam sabers, and the dobergun. It was assuring to know that the amount of damage he had inflicted to OZ earlier had bought him some free time…at least until their commander was back in action, if ever. More likely, they would just send another team in to get him. Could be days, could be weeks, could be months. 

Still, he couldn't leave, and he wouldn't surrender. Very literally, he was a prisoner within the Colony his team had originally picked to occupy. The irony was more bitter in his mouth then recycled air.

***

"OZ!" muttered a voice from in front of them, as the lift doors swung open. 

Mazuri turned and looked at a male doctor or nurse, he couldn't tell, who seemed to physically shrink into his desk, away from them. Kanna paid of no mind and approached the larger desk on the Intensive Care Ward Floor, or ICWF.

"Oh, hello, Officer Kirishima," chirped a perky female Colonists' voice from behind the desk as she looked at her files. "Are you here to see Lieutenant Walker?" she asked cheerfully. 

Kanna nodded her tired head, then pulled at her collar with a finger. "Yea, pretty much. How's he been doing?"

"Oh, it turns out, just recently, he came out of his coma," chirped the Receptionist. 

"WHAT?" 

The Receptionist blinked and looked between the three of them, since all three had gone 'what' at the same time. "Uh…according to Katherine, he recently came out of his coma…would you like me to report it to the press?" she asked. "They've been calling me repeatedly about it and…"

"NO!" This time, it was Kanna alone who was screaming. Mazuri and Bishop hung their heads down. _Well, so much for our vacation_, they both thought. "Iyey! Absolutely not! You will tell _nothing _to the press?" She began to reach for her holster. "I do not want to have to deal with a bunch of your Colony's squealing obnoxious…"

"Kanna! Calm down!" cried Bishop, grabbing her arm with both hands. 

The Receptionist blinked, more confused then ever. "Uh…all right. Would you like to go see Mr. Walker?" 

Kanna hug her head down and sighed. "…I suppose so…" 

"Katherine will give you a better report then I can. He's in the same room as before."

***

"Well, back to work. I suppose it was time we started earning our pay again," admitted Bishop, his hands behind his head as he walked. _Time to start flying that stupid carrier around, like before._

"It was a nice break," acknowledged Mazuri. 

The three walked over to the outside of the room Walker hadn't left in the past few weeks, greeted by a small door that was white like the walls around it, but had a small window, labeled **526**. Underneath the three numbers, a placeholder card was slid in with the name **C. WALKER **handwritten on it. A few reporters, asleep from boredom, slept in waiting chairs, brandishing their cameras and other reporting equipment in their hands.

Bishop tapped Kanna's shoulder and pointed at them, and the taller woman sighed deeply. Katherine, a younger, shorter woman in a white medical uniform appeared from behind her small desk. "Ms. Kirishima…"

"_Officer_ Kirishima," corrected Kanna. "I didn't spend a year in the Infantry and another piloting mobile suits,  just so I could be called 'Miss'."

"Uh…sorry," Nurse Katherine muttered, bowing her head. "Forgive me. Anyway, your Lieutenant, Mr. Walker, just recently regained consciousness."

"How long ago?" asked Mazuri.

"We're not completely sure…when we went into his room this morning to change his IV, he started talking! Not just mumbling, but coherently!" chirped Katherine happily. "It's amazing! Normally, when a patient has been comatose for over a week, and are lucky enough to regain consciousness, they just mumble insanely."

"What did he talk about?"

"…something about how he was going to kill whoever had let him lay asleep for the past two weeks…he didn't seem very happy, in truth," she explained. "Still, it's quite remarkable…this is a sign that his brain can should make a full recovery!"

"That's great," commented Kanna, in a less-than-supportive voice, as she pushed the Nurse aside. "So, then pull Walker out of bed and we can get the hell out of this Colony already," she muttered, looking at the sleeping reporters, "Before this leaks out to the press. You Colonists have no idea how to keep a secret."

"Uh…I'm afraid its not that simple, actually." Katherine swallowed, and took out a file from underneath her arm. "You see, we expect his mind to take a full recovery, with some minor memory loss, but his body is another story, I'm afraid." She opened the paper folder and shuffled the papers around until she produced a white sheet of paper with a diagram of a male human's skeleton, with numerous arrows drawn on it. "He's split his left femur, and done some damage to his second and third vertebrae above his pelvis, disabling him from his waist down due to spinal cord damage. In addition, he's eyes are still rebuilding the nerve-endings, and he's still blind."

"How's his left kidney? Has the bleeding stopped?" asked Mazuri with an intellectual air. 

Katherine blinked. "Kidney?" She flipped through the papers in the folder until she located the right one. "Oh, yes, kidney. We've inserted a synthetic 'cap' over the tear in the surface of the kidney and have managed to stop the bleeding…thankfully, Earth humans also have two kidneys, and he can use the other one until the left heals completely."

Mazuri narrowed his eyes under their lens frames. "Will the cap need to be removed?"

"No, it's been set to his own DNA and should be assimilated into the body."

Mazuri nodded, though his expression told Katherine he wasn't entirely impressed. Kanna blinked, wondering why. _She _was impressed. Then again, she didn't know much about anatomy or healthcare. "…"

"Anyway," continued Katherine. "It's best that he speaks with someone he knows, regaining his interaction skills, which I imagine he needs if he's going to ever return to his career. One of you should go it at a time…any more, and you might overwhelm him."

There was a silence between the three. One of the sleeping reporters, like a dormant landmine, shifted but remained asleep.

"I think Officer Kirishima should go," commented Dack, biting his lip and breaking the silence.

"I agree with Officer Bishop," replied Mazuri courteously.

"_What?_" The reporter shifted more in his seat, but remained asleep. Kanna blinked, and whispered. "Why me?"

"You're our lead NCO," hissed Mazuri. "Its up to you to update the Lieutenant on our circumstances."

"Exactly," whispered Dack. "Besides, you were the last person to speak to Lieutenant Walker. It'll be an easier transition for him this way."

Mazuri nodded. "Excellent reason, Mr. Bishop," he agreed, and turned to Kanna, nodding. "Don't you agree?"

Kana bit down on her teeth, with a brief *clack* noise. "_All right_, Mr. Mazuri," she muttered. "I'll go then." She headed towards the door, carrying her duffle bag, and turned the knob, not before saying "Wussies," out of the corner of her mouth at Dack and Mazuri, who cheerfully waved at her as she opened the door.

"Don't worry, Kanna, we'll take care of the press over here," commented Dack cheerfully as she closed the door behind her. Kanna looked around, to find that the room was almost completely empty, with the exception of a large bed and some electronic equipment set up next to it on a cart. She frowned, pushed the cart slightly with her foot, and looked at the wall opposite to the door. It was dominated by a large, simple-looking window. She opened the blinds and looked out of it, staring down at the street at first. Several _BBC: International _news vans were set up at the street, with idle-looking reporters. 

_Damn press…_She looked up. In truth, the Urban Interior of this Colony looked a lot like a normal city on Earth, except there were no highways or skyscrapers. And there was no horizon, either: if you kept looking on the direction _through _the circular Colony ring, all you would see was the concrete ground eventually bending upwards to form the ring. Very unnerving. 

Kanna closed the blinds and turned to the bed. Sure enough, there was a man in it, though it did not immediately look like 1st Lieutenant Walker. His body was dressed in a white medical tunic underneath the bed sheet, and his right eye was covered by a large bandage-patch that was fitted into place with a longer bandage strip that was wrapped around his entire head, obstructing both eyes. Kanna looked down at him and frowned. 

"Sir?"

No immediate response. _Maybe he's gone comatose again…_

"Sir?"

Walker shifted slightly and appeared to look up, though both his eyes were covered with bandages. "Wha…who is it?" he croaked out.

Kanna blinked. "Sir, it's me."

"Me who? You'll have to be…more specific…I'm afraid…"

Kanna sighed. It was definitely Walker. "Your Second-In-Command…"

He seemed to understand. "Please, sit down," he instructed, and raised one of his bandage-wrapped arms and pointing at a wooden chair placed next to his bed, opposite the medical equipment. 

Kanna nodded and pulled at her collar. The hospital room itself was extremely warm, probably a way to treat Walker's frost-bite. She eventually decided it was unbearable and removed the top of her uniform and let it hang around her waist, then sat down at the chair. She squirmed around in it, since it was not very large, and pulled at her tanktop collar.

"Sir," she said eventually, saluting.

"…who did you say you were, again?" he asked.  

Kanna sweated nervously and scratched the side of her head, as she leaned forward in the chair. "Uh…you're second-in-command, Kanna Kirishima…" she repeated, with a nervous grin. 

Walker shifted. "Kanna? Kanna, is that you?" he asked, in a more familiar, but still distant voice. 

***

_My world is darkness…_

That, he reflected, was true. 

_Walker, we will meet again, where the sun never shines. _

The last thing he clearly remembered was pulling the ejection bar and blasting open his Taurus' hatch. The last thing he remembered seeing was Kirishima's light-brown face yelling something at her, and her flashing violet eyes. Or had that been a violet mobile suit? 

The darkness had begun shortly after he exited the Taurus, proceeded by an intensely cold sensation in his face. His jaw almost went numb, and he went blind. He could still hear Kanna's voice, but it was distant, as though she was speaking slowly. 

_Of course, the headset was in my helmet…_

Time had seemed to slow, just as he imagined it. The primary thing on his mind was how unpleasant dying in Outer Space, without the benefit of gravity to keep your blood from going into little red globs, was. He had felt Kanna drag him out, and had heard her voice echoing in his ears. 

For the next several days, he had dropped in and out of consciousness. Consciousness never lasted more then a few minutes, if one could think of the time in minutes…it could have been hours, it could have been seconds. He didn't exactly have access to a watch or timepiece. 

This, however, seemed different from all those other times. He had been conscious for what must have been hours, since he could ear people moving outside his door. The people outside his door were the only real way to tell if there was any activity, and it told him something else: the days in this place were probably around thirty hours at least, with a fifteen hour period of daylight followed by fifteen hours of night, assuming the system was working. This Colony was one of many of the older models that did not possess the features of a balanced 'day-night cycle' that matched Earth's with a standard of twenty-four hours, and with day light and night varying on the situation and time of year. Instead, the temperature would be adjusted through a heat-sink system to keep the Colony's inefficient lighting from setting itself on fire. From this, Walker realized it must have been one of the older colonies at the first Lagrange point, though it occurred to him that he had been fighting the Controller General Umar-Safia at that area as well.

He spent a lot of his conscious time thinking about Umar-Safia at first, like how he would inflict a suitably gruesome punishment against the Alliance Ace. Sometimes, he would hallucinate driving a pickaxe through his face; sometimes it was a beam saber. Other times he imagined strapping Captain Umar-Safia to a rock in some desert on Earth, and having carefully trained hawks come and rip his eyes out with their beaks. Most of it was relatively impossible, of course, particularly in his current state, and he never thought much about devising a strategy…that part of his brain had appeared to shut off for the time being.

A deep voice echoed through his head again, one that sounded more like that of a man's than a woman's. "Sir," it seemed to say, in a very familiar fashion.

He forced his mouth open, a difficult task, and with a raw, strained voice, asked, "…who did you say you were, again?"

"Uh…you're second-in-command, Kanna Kirishima…" the familiar voice said. 

Indeed, it was Kanna! Despite his poor hearing, he recognized the voice almost immediately. A vague feeling of comfort and familiarity came over him, as he remembered whom he was. 

Her voice seemed to be coming from his right, where he remembered a nurse had put a chair next to his bed for some reason or another. Still, he had to be completely sure that it was in fact Kirishima…he wasn't worried about it being an enemy spy, since there was not much of an enemy left in the Former-Alliance, but a sneaky reporter with a deep voice. And, being blind, there was only one way to find out.

"Please, remain still," he croaked briefly. With some difficulty, he raised his right arm, which felt considerably heavier then what was normal for him, and attempted to reach for the speaker's face, assuming she was sitting down in the chair. He had a good idea where she was, from his observations.

He reached forward slowly, and felt something which, if he was correct, was the speaker's face. However, through his bandage-wrapped hands, he felt that what he was touching had a very rubbery feeling. _Rubber face? _He moved his hand down, feeling around, and felt a notable curve which seemed to be similar to that of a forehead. Clumsily, he felt around for the speaker's nose. 

"Uh, sir?" came the voice again. 

It was a difficult task to move his arm around even slightly, and he couldn't tell if he was getting closer or father from the face. Eventually, he reached the curve's peak and prodded it with his rigid right hand. He mentally frowned, and prodded it again. 

It was covered with a rubbery material, and was quite muscular, and very rounded. And whatever it was, it was not a face. It was slightly smaller then what he imagined Kanna's head to be, and it lacked any facial features whatsoever. 

"Sir, that's…that's not my face…" came the voice again in an awkward tone. 

The gears in Walker's head turned. "Oh," he muttered, realized he had forgot to factor Kanna's considerable height into his estimate. "I'm very sorry," he muttered sheepishly. He pulled his arm back and, using considerable force, lifted it up until he felt a spot without a rubber-texture. _Well, at least I can be sure it's a woman_, he thought indignantly. 

***

Kanna sweated nervously as Walker clumsily moved his rigid arm upwards from her chest and poked her chin with his cold, stiff hand. He maneuvered around it and felt her nose, and even poked her in the eyes, then let his arm fall free.

"Kirishima," he muttered. "It's good to see you, alive and well."

Kanna nodded and, with her military-precision voice back, answered, "Of course, sir."

Walker went silent again, then shifted his arms and grunted loudly. It took a while for her to realize he was trying to sit himself up. "Sir…you shouldn't do that…the nurse said…"

Eventually, he had no choice but to give in. "All right then…" he muttered indignantly, his voice suddenly becoming hard and prompt. "How long have I been out, anyway?"

"Approximately sixteen days, sir. Well, fifteen and a half, if you consider that you arrived at Heero Yuy at night."

Walker seemed to narrow his eyes, under their bandages. "Heero Yuy?"

"It's the name of the hospital, sir. Heero Yuy Memorial."

"Of course. Any word on the Controller General?"

"Captain Umar-Safia has gone into hiding, but reconnaissance reports that no one has left that specific Colony, so we can be sure that he's still there."

"OZ didn't send any other SMS teams to take care of him?"

Kanna shrugged and put her arms behind her head, something she wouldn't have done if Walker could see her. "Negative. Colonel Une is supporting the publicity surrounding this…it seems only natural that the 4th Interstellar take care of the matter."

Silence again. Walker visibly nodded his head and remained still. Then, he began to move, in brief jerks. He tried to lift himself with his arms, startling Kanna, and rocked around on his bed. It eventually occurred to her that he was trying to sit up again. 

"Sir!"

"This is ridiculous…I'm confined to this damn bed…" he muttered. He sighed and looked up at her, or tried to. "How bad was I when they found me?"

"Pretty badly beat up, sir. You ruptured one of your kidneys."

Walker nodded. "Wonderful, I hate always being right." He sat back and appeared to relax, sinking into the mattress and pillow, then spoke up again. "I might as well rest until then…"

"Sir, uh…there's another minor problem…"

"And what is that?" he asked, not moving a muscle. 

"Well…" she began, scratching her head. "This whole incident has been…fairly well publicized…"

"Publicized?"

"By the Press, sir. The Colonial Press."

"How well publicized, approximately?" he asked, sounding concerned.

Kanna bit down on her tongue, then unzipped her duffle bag. Reaching in, she dug around the piles of papers and dug out a single thick magazine with a red border around it. On it, written in English, in large red capitals, was the words 'TIME', with smaller red capitals underneath reading 'INTERSTELLAR'. She handed it to the Lieutenant, who took it and looked at it blankly.

"What am I looking at?" he asked, after a while. 

"The June Episode of _Time Interstellar_, just like the one on Earth, except with a longer title. And you on the cover."

Kanna took a brief moment to enjoy the started reaction she drew from her superior with that. "I'm on the cover?" He tried to stare at it. "What do I look like?"

"It's just a picture of you striding through a corridor…probably snapped by some Colonist Paparazzi, surrounded by us." She lifted up the magazine into the light and looked at it. "You actually don't look that bad…really military smart. I'm in it too, briefing you for whatever we were about to do. Mazuri seems to be staring directly at the camera, since his eyeglasses are flashing." She shrugged. "Bishop's in it too, but his face is cut out. You can only see his arm and shoulder."

"Well, that's just great," he mumbled. "Well, we can be sure that Umar-Safia is aware of my current state."

"Sir, with all due respect," she began wistfully, "That's one of the least of your problems. The second Umar-Safia tries to leave his Colony, he's going to be vaporized by a horde of patrolling mobile dolls."

"Then what's the greater of my problems?"

Kanna glanced at the door. "Outside, there's press camped around in the waiting room. OZ doesn't like publicity besides well-organized press conferences and military announcements." She frowned. "And who the hell can blame us? We're the one's actually doing the fighting…it's not like its any of the Press' business anyway." 

"…"

She stood up. "Anyway, sir, I'll let you get some rest. We don't know how long it'll take for you to make a physical recovery, so we'll have to wait. And as long as your out of action, we're not going anywhere. Unless, of course, Colonel Une decides to pull you off this assignment and off this team, which she won't, with all this…"

"Publicity, I know," he muttered and rolled away, facing the window. 

Kanna stood up and nodded sternly. "Sir?"

"What?"

"Your orders?" 

She didn't get an immediate response. When it did, Walker's tone of voice became much more insistent and forceful. "Standby till I give further orders. Keep the press at bay. You have your orders, Officer Kirishima."

"Yes sir, also, one last thing." She lifted her duffle bag over him. "Once you regain your vision…" 

She opened the bag and let several stacks of envelopes and postcards, bound with rubber bands, fall onto Walker's body. He grunted physically as the piled up on him. 

"You've got fan-mail you should answer. Last count it was around four hundred letters."

"…"

"Sir?"

"I see," he muttered, pushing the papers aside. "In the rhetorical sense, I mean."

He heard some distant talking, and Kanna mumbled something to the side he didn't quite pick up. Then she spoke directly to him. "Also, Bishop and Mazuri wanted me to give you this. They said it was 'the best medicine'…"

He felt several cold cylinders through his blanket, laying on his knees. They were quite heavy, and sloshing. He smirked a bit. "Well…it's not laughter…is it…beer?"

"You got it sir."

"I think it's a bit much…perhaps you should take it back with you. Amazing they sell beer in hospitals." He managed to raise his arm again and gave her what was near a salute.

She saluted immediately. "Sir!" She paused. "Can I go now? Hospitals always give me the willies."

"Go right ahead, I feel the exact same way." _You give me the willies. _

***

The two remaining able-bodied men in the 4th Interstellar Team stared at the reporters, sleeping in their waiting chairs.

"We should do something about this, shouldn't we?" asked Bishop, after a while.

"You know, I was thinking the exact same thing." Mazuri reached forward with the precision of a surgeon and, without stirring the first reporter out of his slumber. Using his index finger, he carefully reached forward and pressed a key on the reporter's camcorder, causing the side tray to open up. He pulled out the small disc from the tray and, with less caution, snapped it in half.

He turned to Bishop. "There's one. Let's get the others, but don't wake them up."

"Right," nodded Bishop.

Systematically, the two set out, slowly and carefully, removing the recording discs from the cameras or even the entire cameras themselves and dismantling them. From the desk, one of the Hospital Nurses stared at them blankly.

"Military Protocol," explained Mazuri as he dismantled another camcorder. 

"More like military censorship," mumbled the Nurse.

"Fine, look at the darker side if you want."

Only a few minutes after she had entered, Kanna closed the door to the ward room behind her with exaggerated caution, and turned to speak to Mazuri and Bishop, just as Bishop was dismantling a camera over his knee. She blinked and frowned. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING?"

That was enough to wake most of the reporters who instinctively grabbed their cameras, those of which still had cameras, and Kanna rolled her eyes. "All right, come on you two. Lets get out of here before any of us do something stupid enough that we regret it."

"That would be hard," joked Bishop. He cheerfully watched as the reporters inspected their harmless camcorders in a confounded fashion. "Come on, let's go."

"You go ahead, Bishop," mumbled Kanna. "There's something I have to take care of."

Bishop shrugged and walked away to the elevator. Mazuri was about to leave when Kirishima grabbed him by the arm, stopping him in place.

"Mazuri."

"Hmm?" He looked down at Kanna's hand, locked on his forearm. 

"There's something I need to ask you…"

"How's the Lieutenant?"

"What?"

"How is Lieutenant Walker?"

"Oh, yea, he's fine. Actually, he's not fine…he's still blind and paralyzed from the waist down."

"That's going to definitely hurt his sex-life."

"Uh, yea, sure, whatever." She jerked him a little closer. "Listen," she said quietly, hoping to avoid the attention of the reporters. "How did you know about it?"

"About what?"

"The Lieutenant's injuries. You knew about everything…the femur, the kidney." She frowned. "Call me crazy, but that wasn't covered in Mobile Suit 101."

With a considerable effort, Mazuri managed to break free. "Oh, that?" He flexed his fingers, trying to get the circulation to continue through his arm. "Nothing…it's just that."

"Just what?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. It became increasingly evident to Mazuri that this was less of a request and more of an order. He sighed.

"Fine, if you must know, _ma'am_, I wasn't always an Alliance Pilot. In middle-school I was taking courses in Health Occupations." He rolled his eyes. "I probably would have continued with them in high school if I hadn't left for Nairobi."

"Of course," she muttered. "That would explain." She looked back at the press who, in the same way an ant realizes that an object is edible, had begun to realize that someone had been tampering with their cameras. "Let's get out of here."

"Agreed."

***

It was one of the colder days in Colony L1-D0442722, as insulation was weakened to allow the excess heat from the light-sources was bleed into outer space. It was an enormous inconvenience being in an unbalanced day to night ratio, which resulted in drastic temperature changes. There was also the fact that D042722 also lacked any sort of weather management system: it never rained, snowed, or fogged. The air was manually kept dry by repeated filtering, and had a distinctly bad taste. 

"Ah…" giggled a voice belonging to a small Colonist crouched over in front of a flat-screen monitor. "So, there you are!"

Inside her tiny, dimly lit room, she waved her arms around in an eccentric manner, then, using the tip of her left index finger, pressed down on a key. 

On the screen, images of Lieutenant Christopher Walker, followed by a near-endless amount of data on him from the OZ Personnel Directory scrolled pass. There were pictures of him as an engineer, as a Special Soldier, even as a child, everything. 

"Oooh…" she said, her lips forming an 'o'. "So…this is the real colony hero, Walker!" She squinted, despite the fact that she was wearing a complex headset linked via USB to the laptop. "He certainly doesn't look like Heero Yuy."

She reached forward and pressed a key again, with exaggerated finesse. All of the words and images vanished, replaced by a single large video clip. On the tiny speakers, his voice played, unremarkable yet distinct, sincere yet bitter.

"…our primary concern is that of the safety of Colony civilians as well as the neutralization of the remaining Alliance Space Armada, and…"

She reached forward and pressed her finger against the keyboard yet again, and the video clip winded back to the beginning. 

"…that our primary concern is that of the safety of Colony civilians as well as the neutralization of the remaining Alliance Space Armada, and of…"

She pressed again. Again the video clip rewound and again Walker's stark voice came out of it. She grinned. 

"..of Colony civilians as well as the neutralization of the remaining Alliance Space Armada, and of the formation of a stable peace in Outer Space…"

"Well, Lieutenant Walker," she chirped, sitting in a fashion so that she was holding her knees in her hands. "I think you've met your match."

***

When he could sleep, Walker did. And he managed to dream about what he thought were good memories. But most of the time, it was the same thing.

Nova Scotia. The Alliance Stronghold point in the Canadian-Sector, as well as the largest concentration of weaponry in North America. 

_"Technician Walker…"_

_"Sir!" Like always, he saluted. _

_The chromium masked head turned towards him, followed by a long cascade of platinum-blond hair. "Walker, I'm glad you came on such short notice."_

_"Of course, sir!" He lowered the salute and stood at attention, giving Zechs his military smile, a mixture of loyalty, triumph, and self-depreciation. "If there's anything I can do, I'd be glad to help you."_

_"I need your help." Zechs seemed to shift his head away sheepishly. "I…I want you to…" Then he began to smile. "It's going to sound ridiculous."_

_"Sir, if there's anything I can do to help you, please, ask."_

_"I've got a tour of duty from Alliance High Command…Marshall Noventa himself. Some Alliance General has gone warlord and formed and independent republic in California, in the North American Sector. He's already seized the Los Angeles base. But that's not important."_

_"Sir, I'd be glad to accompany you to manage your suits…"_

_"I want you to reenlist in the Specials Mobile Suit Corps."_

_Zechs just stared at him through the small ports in his helmet. He blinked, and swallowed. "As…as a mobile suit pilot…?"_

_"I'll understand if you don't want to…it's been a while…"_

_"Sir!" He saluted again, this time with a stern face. "I'll work to have myself re-qualified to pilot an Aries. It would be an honor to be able to join you."_

_Zechs nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, Walker. You and Otto are the only comrades I have," he said. He returned the salute. "Together till the end, it seems?"_

_He gave another military smile. "Together till them end, wherever that may bring us. Lieutenant Zechs, I will follow you to the depths of hell." _

_"That means a great deal Walker," said Zechs. "A great deal." He smiled. "After all, after we die, we will all being going to hell." He seemed amused. "I suppose that's not a good way to look at it at all, is it? How about, we just say…" he paused. "The place that the sun never shines."_

_Walker nodded in agreement, he did not believe in hell anyway. Not in the religious sense, anyway. "Zechs…Sir, we will meet again where the sun never shines." _

And that was where he had heard Zechs tell him. The phrase he had repeated in the back of his mind every time the Lightning-Count came to memory. Still, he did not understand it. At first, he had thought it had something to do with death…but now, Christopher Berker Walker thought he might be incapable of death, unfortunately. 

Zechs, on the other hand, was dead. He had died trying to escape to Outer Space, perhaps due to some sort technical failure in the Tallgeese. The mobile suit prototype was not designed for space-combat. If that was the case…it was his fault. It was not fair…both of them had faced pilots of a high caliber…Zechs against a Gundam Pilot, Walker against an Alliance Ace. However, Zechs had won the battle, only to die in circumstances beyond his control. Walker had lost his battle and still survived. It was ridiculous. 

Walker found himself returning to the world of the medical ward. Before returning back to sleep, he took a deep breath and repeated the phrase once more, this time out loud.

"Sir, we will meet again where the sun never shines."

But Zechs was dead. Just as the Alliance base at Nova Scotia was buried. 

Walker was sure of it. 

***

"Well, it's nice to know we still get a break," commented Bishop cheerfully.

"You realize, of course," began Kanna as she sat down in a chair in the room, "That the longer we stay here doing nothing, the harder it's going to be to finally find and kill the Controller General?"

The two with them, along with A. Mazuri, walked into the small hotel room provided by the Colony Delegation as a way to say 'thank you' for OZ's services in that area. It was rather simple, but compared to the barracks the 4th Interstellar was used to, it was very comfortable.

"Hey, who says we're not doing anything!" exclaimed Bishop. He reached into his back and held up a small multi-colored cube. Kanna and Mazuri frowned and inspected it. 

"What is it?"

"Dunno. Found it in some little shop in the Colony somewhere a few days ago." He looked at the cube himself. "It's definitely plastic, cheap stuff. Also, when I first got it, each of the sides had its own color, instead of being mixed up like this. The owner said the idea of the game was to mix up the squares, then get them back up again."

"Let me see that," muttered Mazuri, grabbing it from him. Putting it in his hands, he twisted a side, and then twisted another side, independently. He paused. "Huh. Interesting little game. Very cute." He looked up at Bishop. "Twenty pounds says you don't figure the thing out before you die or are discharged from OZ."

"Make it fifty, and you're on!" Bishop grinningly took the cube back and Mazuri walked over to his bed.

_Sucker_, they both thought, seconds within each other. 

"Well, while you two are busy fumbling over that," rasped Kanna from her bed, "I'm going to take this little opportunity I've been given to rest and take it."

There was a silence. 

"I call shower!" she yelled. She immediately sat up, and walked over to the room's small bathroom.

"Damn!" muttered Mazuri sarcastically. Kanna stuck out her tongue and pulled down an eyelid at him, then disappeared into the bathroom. Mazuri sat on his bed while Bishop fumbled around with the cube. The sound of running water became evident, and Bishop and Mazuri became very silent.

Mazuri spoke out. "So…"

"Uh…yea…"

"…you…uh…you want to take a peek?"

"Peek at what?"

"You know…Kanna…"

The two stared at each other, then exploded out laughing uncontrollably. Mazuri rolled off his bed, while Bishop dropped the plastic multi-colored cube onto the carpeted floor.

"You know what Kanna would do if she caught us doing that?" screamed Mazuri between his barking laughs. 

"Yea! She'd kill us!" Bishop grabbed his side and shook in the armchair. "Literally! She'd beat us shitless, then take us outside and shoot us in the alley."

The two stopped laughing, stared at each other, and then resumed, Mazuri slowly standing up from the floor. 

"We must be insane, talking about this! Hell, she's our CO!" cried Mazuri, still barking in laughter.

"Not only that!" Bishop added, "But she's two meters tall! She's the tallest person I've ever met! She'd break our necks if she heard us!"

"Probably!"

The two continued rolling around in laughter for a solid twenty minutes, a mixture of potential terror and incredible amusement. Eventually, Kanna opened the door, releasing a thick blanket of steam into the room, clad in, what was for her, an undersized towel. She blinked and looked at the two, who slowly stopped laughing as they saw her. 

Silence again. Kanna towered over them with a quizzical look on her face.

"…what's so funny?" she asked. She hated being left out of a joke. 

"Nothing! Seriously!" giggled Bishop, laying back in his armchair. "Just something Mazuri pointed out…"

Kanna put her arms on her waist, a small bead of water dripping down her face. "Mazuri?" she asked.

From the floor, Mazuri blinked. "You're not wearing your headband," he pointed out quickly. 

_Nice save_, thought Bishop as he straightened himself out. _Stupid, but nice. _

Kanna frowned and felt her forehead underneath dripping red hair. "Uh…hai…I normally take my clothes off when I shower, headband included…"

Bishop snickered uncontrollably from his chair.

"…as I assume most people do."

Bishop stood up from his chair, his face bright scarlet, still holding his sides. Dragging his feet, Mazuri shifted towards his male comrade and the two visibly vibrated, emitting an occasional snicker, not daring to face Kanna. She just stared at the two and blinked several times.

"Okay…this must be some guy thing or something…" she said after a while, directing her voice to the ceiling. 

Dack turned his head slowly and Kanna jumped back. His eyes had become small black dots on his face, and his smile was unbelievably crooked. He looked like a larger-then-life character from a political cartoon. "…me…"

With on hand holding on her towel, Kanna stared at him blankly. "…"

"…me…"

"…"

"…me and Mazuri are going to go out and get some beers or something…" he managed to spit out, and the two helped each other to the door and fell out of the room. Their insane laughter filled the hallway.

Kanna blinked her violet eyes, cocking one eyebrow in a skeptical manner. "Those two guys better not get themselves killed…I'm working overtime as it is…" She shrugged and went to go get dressed.

***

Several Colonists stepped back as Field Sergeant Dack Bishop, clad in his back OZ uniform, toppled onto the sidewalk. In fact, he wouldn't have toppled onto the sidewalk if it hadn't been Corporal A. Mazuri kicking him. 

"Ow!" he yelled, standing up and catching the glare of many nearby Colonists. "What the hell was that for?"

"You're almost got us killed!" screamed Mazuri, infuriated. "By Kanna, no less!"

"ME?" inquired the younger man angrily. "ME? Who's the one who suggested we go in and sneak a peak on the Amazon, eh?"

"I WAS JOKING!"

"Doesn't matter! It was YOUR IDEA!" He dusted the gravel off his black uniform and looked around at the crowd of curious citizens forming around them. "What the hell are you looking at!" he screamed. "This is OZ business! MOVE YOUR ASSES!" 

Quickly, the crowd dispersed, reengaging their previous conversations. Dakc continued brushing off his uniform, and noticed something. "Crap, I left that plastic cube-thingy in the room…hold on…" He turned back towards the Hotel entrance, before Mazuri grabbed him by the collar. 

"BARADHULI!" he screamed furiously. 

Bishop frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means 'idiot' in Swahili, you moron!" hissed Mazuri, adjusting his glasses. "We'd better not go in there again."

"Fine. Where to, _Corporal_?"

"Like you said, let's go get some beers. Your treat."

Dack straightened himself out and shrugged. "Sure, though I don't have any money."

"Put it on a tab…OZ will pay for everything, as usual. Who knows, maybe the barkeep will give us a few rounds on the house, seeing how we're the _saviors of El-One_."

The two laughed heartily and walked down the street, getting a constant stream of stares from passing Colonists. Dack looked around casually, feeling better. "You know, maybe we shoulda' worn normal clothes or something…"

Mazuri snorted, waving. "Don't worry about it. They worship us like Gods at this rate. One of the perks of being the liberating good guys liberating the helpless foreign masses from tyranny and guarding them certain doom and chaos."

Dack gave him a tight grin. "You certainly like this job, don't you?"

"Eeh," he went, shrugging. "At times."

"Huh?"

"Means yes."

"Oh." _I hate being the only one in this damn team that can't speak another language. _He pointed at a sign of one of the small buildings that lines the street. "You think this is a bar?"

Mazuri bent over and looked at it. In bold blue words it proclaimed **AZULES ETERNITY**. 

"Maybe. Funny name for a bar, though."

Bishop nodded. "Well, worth a try. Who knows, maybe we'll strike lucky an it'll be a strip bar during happy hour."

Mazuri shook his head. "Judging my our luck, I'd say no. Still, worth a shot."

Dack nodded his head again, and walked up to the bar, before being held back by the collar again. 

"One last thing, Dack…" Mazuri slung an arm over his comrade and leaned over towards him. "When you go in there," he said very quietly, "Remember that we're representing OZ. Now, I realize it might not be my position to lecture you on work ethics, seeing how I managed to get lucky with a pair of twins on that mission in St. Petersburg, but personally, I don't want Colonel Une breathing down our _necks_, okay?"

The blond-haired man nodded obediently, and Mazuri pulled his arm back and patted him on the shoulder. "Good. Now, act all friendly-like and stuff."

 Hurriedly, less they do something else they would regret, the two marched rigidly into the building, passing through the swinging glass doors and into the darkness. As was expected, OZ Higher Command, as well as the Universal Laws of Interaction Between Civilians and Military Personnel (first drafted in AC 022) had no specific regulations against entering and being served at locally operated pubs or taverns, as long as you expected to be treated as a normal civilian and you weren't on duty. As they passed through, the unmistakable scent of cheap beer hit them in the faces, causing Bishop to take a deep breath, before he encountered the same feeling that Mazuri felt: the several pairs of eyes that were now on their black uniforms and holsters. A game of darts which was going on at the other end of the pub interrupted itself for perhaps as much as a minute, and the din of voices dropped to about half its volume. 

Mazuri looked around and swallowed nervously, already having second thoughts. He was about to apologize and have him and Bishop leave, when the barkeep, a large man with a stained apron, cried out. "Mi dios! Los soldados de el OZ!" He was a large man, probably in his forties, a Colonist's whose parents or grandparents might have been Earth-bound Latin Americans. 

Dack blinked, then whispered to Mazuri. "Dude…you know Spanish?"

He shook his head. 

"Crap."

The barkeeps mood quickly turned from astonished to cheerful. "Que pasa! Es un honor para servir a tales hombres distinguidos! _Entre, entre!_" 

Other then the barkeep, no one was talking, and Mazuri was still nervous. "What do we do now?"

"…entre, I guess…" mumbled Dack. The two took one step closer to the bar, when the owner noticed something was wrong.

"Oh! I am sorry! No hablan Espanol?" he asked cheerily. "Come in, come in! It is an honor to see some of OZ's brave soldiers in my humble establishment."

The Barkeep's English was actually quite clear and understandable, so Dack released a deep breath and Mazuri promptly walked over to the bar. "Oh, well, it's quite all right," he said as casually as he could. He sat down on a barstool and turned to his companion. "Bishop, come on!" he exclaimed, gesturing with his head. "It's rude not to accept this man's offer."

"Uh…yea…" Dack clumsily made his way to the stool next to Mazuri's and sat himself down. 

"So, what can I do for you gentlemen?" the barkeep asked with a slight accent.

Mazuri spoke first, again. "I'll have scotch, by itself, and my partner will have a glass of water with ice."

Dack gave Mazuri a vicious stare and mumbled something to himself about revenge. The Barkeep stepped back and made their drinks, chuckling to himself, and the uneasiness caused by their entry seemed to disappear. The game of darts was at fool swing again, as the Barkeep set their beverages against the tabletop. 

***

When Warrant Officer Kanna Kirishima exited the bathroom, fully dressed and using a towel to dry her hair, she was somewhat surprised to find herself alone, Dack and Mazuri being nowhere near at the moment. She shrugged and sat down on the bed, stretching her arms. _You know what this means_, she thought to herself. Indeed, she did know what that meant.

More paperwork.

She reached into her duffle bag and pulled out a four-centimeter thick packet of papers and set them on the desk, as well as a pen. They were the registration forms for the repairs that would be done on the 4th Interstellar's one remaining Taurus unit. Normally, had she been on OZ-controlled Earth, or had the Taurus been sent to the Space Station _Barge_ for repairs, there would have been none of this to fill out, but things in the Colonies were far less efficient. 

She red and signed out the first paper, writing the Romanized version of her name sketchily with ink three times in different places, then set it to the side and repeated the process with the next sheet. When it came to her signature, she was actually a speedy writer, and managed to quickly get through the first twenty sheets, though by the end, she really wished she had her family seal to stamp on the pages as oppose to signing every single one. _This must be why I'm  called the 'warrant' office_, she thought to herself. 

After a time, she lay back in her chair and began chewing her pen, crossing her arms. She hated this part of her job. Ever since the Lieutenant had been incapacitated, Kanna had taken his place during the 4th Interstellar's upheaval. If this was it was like being a commander, she'd rather have her eyeballs gouged out then take the Lieutenant's Examination. She was a soldier: in the infantry, she had learned to kill. Now she could do the same thing with a seven-metric-ton mobile suit. Paperwork wasn't something she had been expecting. 

She stopped chewing and spat out the pen, then looked at the papers. She sat up and walked away from the table, and lifted the phone hanging on the wall of its receiver. "Room service? This is room two-thirteen. Do you have any old kerosene stoves or anything?"

***

"…so…there was like…fifty guys…around me…" explained Mazuri drowsily. "These old Alliance guys…" 

He paused, for dramatic effect. Next to him, in the pub, sat an increasingly aggravated-looking Dack, who inspected the bottom of his glass of water, considering whether or not he should try to ram it down his comrade's throat. 

"…and dey shesh…Mazuri…we na gonna let you go help them ossers…" 

The Barkeep, as well as several patrons, leaned towards the counter, deeply engrossed with Mazuri's storytelling. Mazuri paused, and looked at his own glass. Immediately, the barkeep took the glass, filled it up again with more Scotch, and set it in front of Mazuri, who took it as a sign to continue.

"So I says to them…uh…oh yea…"

"That's it!" yelled Bishop, standing up, something popping in his brain. "Corporal Mazuri! We need to go NOW SIR!" 

He remained standing for about four minutes, as Mazuri slowly craned his neck up to face him. "Eh?"

"LETS GO, SIR!" he screamed, this time more insistently. 

Looking up at his comrade, the gears in Mazuri's head turned as they usually did, except notably slower. Nonetheless, it didn't matter how drunk he was at the moment: he wasn't going to say anything stupid, especially to a moron, in his eyes, like Dack Bishop. 

"Listen very closely," commented Mazuri with his usual intellectual air, as though the thinking had sobered him up. "I hate being a soldier, Bishop. I hate the hours, I hate the conditions, and I hate those goddamn stupid oaths that we take. And I also don't like having to be the genius of the Fourth Team constantly." He leaned forward, breathing alcohol into Bishop's face. "You know how difficult it is to be smart _and _charismatic at the same time?"

Bishop paused for five seconds. "Charismatic," he said finally, "Is not a substitute for 'horny'."

The Kenyan looked up at his partner with a sort of smile. "…that was uncharacteristically clever and witty of you, Dack." He leaned against the bar. "So shut up and have a beer, before my intellect shrinks to the point where its smaller then yours."

Dack Bishop had already expended his store of clever and witty responses, so he shrugged and turned to the Barkeep. "Hey…could I get another beer here?"

***

By the time that the two male members of the 4th Interstellar returned to their Colony-paid hotel, thoroughly hammered and barely able to walk the distances without leaning on each other to stay standing.

Kirishima herself remained in her room, after having gone through the trouble to find a small _paraffin _stove, some dried pasta noodles, and a bottle of soy sauce. It was actually somewhat difficult to find the last component in this Colony, since a majority of the inhabitants appeared to be from either Italian or Latin American descent, and their food supply reflected this, but she had eventually found it. She also had the essentials from the kitchen: oil, spices, oregano, more spices. 

She poured some water into the short but wide pot on the top of the stove, turned the lever to release paraffin fuel, and lit it with a match. The stove was an enormously old-fashion device, the sort of thing that had existed over three hundred years ago, no doubt. Even those far beneath the poverty line on Earth (which there wasn't many, with the Global Socialism movement that had been started prior to the Alliance) could afford a paraffin stove itself. The actual paraffin, however, was slightly more hard to come by, purely because no paraffin, with the exception of archaic wax candles that were sometimes used as decor, had been processed from the Earth's dwindling petroleum resources for the past century. All but the largest motor vehicles were electric, and most of the largest ran on hydrogen fuel. Petroleum seemed like a waste for candles, and a majority of them were made of organic wax from honey or from sand.

The stove eventually lit up, and the water began to bubble. Kanna ripped open the package of long, thin pasta noodles and dumped them in, then dropped in some vegetables she had purchased from the hotel kitchen at ridiculously low prices. She added some oregano and opened the container of spice, a reddish powder, and coolly emptied the entire container into it. Not many people would suspect that Kanna Kirishima, Japanese noblewoman, former Sergeant in the ground Infantry, and twice the man that the average male OZ soldier, liked to cook. 

And she really did like cooking. She liked to cook almost as much as she liked to eat. It had been a skilled she learned from one of the underpaid-underlings who had worked at her family's Estate for several years. 

That, she thought dimly, did not make her a good cook though. Most people were unwilling to try her food. It might have been the reasoning that someone of her physique and attitude wasn't exactly chef material. She emptied the second container of spice, then added some oil sparingly.

To her right, the door opened, and Dack Bishop entered. Hanging onto Bishop's arm like a brace was A. Mazuri, his head hanging. As soon as he cleared the door, Dack looked at Kanna, the stove, then back at Kanna with a _Why-the-hell-are-you-cooking-for_ stare, while Kanna stared at the two younger men with a _What-the-hell-did-you-guys-do-to-each other_ look.

Bishop, who seemed to be made extremely perceptive by alcohol consumption, or just seemed more intelligent while Mazuri was unable to function, answered her question. "Grog man here," he said, pointing at his partner as he let him fall to the ground, "Thought it would be nice to go on a binge drinking episode."

Kanna stood up and looked down at him, then frowned. "What the hell, Mazuri? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one…"

Mazuri answered this time. "I had my…reasons…"

Gingerly, Kanna lifted Mazuri up with her left arm and helped him to the bathroom, then closed the door. Dack, still relatively sober, walked over to the stove and inspected it. "You cooking or something?" he asked after a while.

"How could you tell?" asked Kanna sarcastically. 

"Mind if I ask why? I mean, I know you enjoy eating, but you can order all the food you want from room service. You don't even have to pay."

Kanna stretched her arms, walking back to the stove. She stood a good twenty centimeters taller then Dack. "As it happens, I like to cook."

There was a silence, and Bishop just stared at her. "What? Is it so hard to imagine that a woman like me would like to do just one thing that's slightly effeminate?"

Dack thought a moment before answering. "Yes, it is." He sat down on the bed and pulled out one of his boots. "No offense, Warrant Officer, but Walker himself said it: you're twice the man any of us are, in about three times the biomass."

She gave him a sort of twisted frown as he pulled free is other boots and wiggled his toes. He then looked down at the pan on the stove, crackling and cooking and back up at Kanna. "You mind if I try some?"

Kanna blinked, confused. Most people would go right ahead and make fun of her cooking hobby, but very few were brave enough to actually try her food, though she couldn't understand what was wrong with it: it tasted good enough to her. "Yea, sure, go ahead." She tossed him a paper plate, and he used the spatula to scoop a large amount of reddish noodles and vegetables onto it. He looked up.

"Got a fork?"

She shrugged apologetically and he nodded, then took a large bite, consuming about a fourth of the plate's contents. Dack chewed, a piece of vegetable stalk hanging out of his mouth, chewed more, and swallowed. He cocked his head to the side, as Kanna leaned towards him, arms crossed, waiting for a reaction.

"This is actually pretty good," he said. "It's got a real zing to it."

She frowned for a moment. _Zing? What's that?_ Then she realized that she had received a compliment on her cooking, the first one in an indefinite period, and she smiled broadly. "You really think so?"

Dack scooped the rest into his mouth and nodded his head. After he swallowed he answered, "Yea, it's good. I mean, it's nothing ground-breaking…it tastes Japanese…kind of…"

"Nothing wrong with it?" she asked, leaning over the bed. 

He shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. I mean, it's just pasta and vegetables and…" he paused. 

Kanna leapt over the bed and in front of him, deeply interested. "What? What?"

Dack had become extremely rigid, vibrating slightly. At first she though it was just an illusion, but she realized that his face was literally a shade redder. He slowly shifted his head, as though he was to decide whether to swallow or not swallow. "…uh…" he managed to say. 

"What? WHAT IS IT?" She grabbed his arm and shook him. 

"…and…uh…spice…" he whimpered. "Lots…and lots…of spice…"

Kanna blinked. "Hai, so? I always cook with spice. Adds flavor."

From his right and increasingly red eye, a single tear came from his eyelids and rolled down his cheek. "I think…" he began. "I think…I think you put…"

"Too much?" she asked.

Rather then nodding, Dack sprang to his feet and charged for the bathroom door, tripping over the bed. He scrambled across the bed sheet and knocked over the bed-stand and lamp, frantically. He ran up to the door and began knocking his fists against it. "MAZURI! OPEN! FOR GOD SAKES!"

Kanan sighed. "Another chapter in the story of my life, I suppose," she muttered unhappily. 

"OPEN UP! GOD DAMN IT, MAN, OPEN UP!" My now, Bishop's eyes were blood red and tearing uncontrollably. 

"There's water in the freezer," she informed him slowly, pointing at the black boxy container beneath a shelf, near her shoes right in front of the door. 

Bishop nodded and scrambled madly to it, and shook it open. Unfortunately, as was standard procedure with hotels, it was locked with a tight plastic seal (designed to measure whether or not it had been opened, so the inhabitants could be charged accordingly). He pulled at it repeatedly and even hit it with his baton, which hung around his belt, when the pain in his mouth became intolerable and he had only one option left. 

Jerkily, he pulled the pistol out of the holster hooked to his belt, pressed it against the seal, and fired, only to hear a clicking noise: the safety had been on. Dack fumbled with it, turned off the safety, and fired. The second time there was a deafening shot in the room, and he ripped open the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of water.

"Don't be so dramatic," commented Kanna, rubbing her forehead, as he tore open the plastic bottle and gulped down the contents gratefully. "It's not _that _spicey."

He turned around and looked at her, the bottle of water in his mouth, and stared at her angrily, then resumed drinking.

Kanna sighed deeply as Mazuri came out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth. "Hey…" he muttered. "Any of you guys got a mint?" He sniffed his own breath: it reeked of alcohol and vomit. 

She closed her eyes and crossed her arms. "Welcome back to the world of the sober, Maz-chan," she barked out, not looking at him. She walked over to the small phone placed on the stand between the two beds and lifted the headset. "I'll go ask room service for some…that, and a few aspirin." With her index finger, she punched the zero key and put her hand to her waist. "Room Service? It's two thirteen again…yea, the stove's great, thanks. Listen, we need some aspirin and some breath mints." She waited. "You'll need a number for the pharmacy? Christ, what the hell's the matter with you people…need a ID number to get some aspirin…just for soldiers? Figures. This is Kanna Kirishima, number zero-one-nine-zero-four-eight-three…"

***

One by one, the numbers came up on the dark screen, as the tiny giggling Colonist stared at them.

"Ahhh! Come, tell mommy who you are!" she said in a high-pitched falsetto. Five numbers, six numbers…

**01989043**

"Come! Come!" she squealed. 

**019890434**

"Just one more!"

**0198904345 - Complete**

"Yay!" she cheered in her strange voice. "I love you! I love you, I love you, I love you so much!" she cooed at her computer. She spun around and tapped rapidly at her keyboard. 

**0198904345 – OZ Personnel Database **

**WARNING! ALL ACCESS TO THIS DATABASE WITHOUT PROPER WARRANT WILL BE PUNISHED TO THE MAXIMUM SEVERITY OF THE ORGANIZATION LAW!**

**ACTUNG! ALLER ZUGRIFF ZU DIESER DATENBANK OHNE KORREKTE ERMACHTIGUNG WIRD ZUR MAXIMALEN SCHWIERIGKEIT DES ORGANISATION GESETZES BESTRAFT!**

**ALERTA! TODO EL ACCESO A ESTA BASE DE DATOS SIN LA AUTORIZACION APROPIADA SERA CASTIGADO A LA SEVERIDAD MAXIMA DE LA LEY DE LA ORGANIZACION!**

"Yea, yea, I know," she muttered in her natural voice as she hit a key and the warnings vanished from the screen. Suddenly, she frowned, as another series of words came up.

**PROCESSING**

**Name/Title:           Kanna Kirishima**

**ID/Serial Number:  0198904345**

**Rank:**                    **Warrant Officer**

**Sex/Gender:           Female**

**Race/Ethnicity:       Japanese/African-American (Asian)**

**Birthplace:            Nagano, United Japanese Isles**

**Year of Birth:                  After Colony 177**

She gritted her teeth, immediately seeing something about this OZ soldier she distinctly disliked, underneath the primary information. 

**Height:                 202 centimeters**

"DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT!" she squealed aloud. "Why does she have to be so tall? It's no fair!" She beat her hands against the floor next to the processor. "It's no fair! She's over forty centimeters taller then me! I HATE IT!"

She sighed and seemed to become calmer, and pressed her finger against another key.

**PROCESSING RELATED FILE**

**Name/Title:           Ali Mazuri**

**ID/Serial Number:  0198904091**

**Rank:**                    **Corporal**

**Sex/Gender:           Male**

**Race/Ethnicity:       Kikuyu/Luhya (African)**

**Birthplace:            Nairobi, Socialist Republic of Kenya**

**Year of Birth:                  After Colony 177**

"Hmmm…" she said, looking at the picture carefully. "Kind of cute. Loose the glasses, though. Makes you look too nerdy," she informed her monitor. She pressed another key. 

**PROCESSING RELATED FILE**

**Name/Title:           Dackard Bishop**

**ID/Serial Number:  0198904077**

**Rank:**                    **Field Sergeant**

**Sex/Gender:           Male**

**Race/Ethnicity:       Northern Caucasian (American)**

**Birthplace:            New Jersey, North American Sector**

**Year of Birth:                  After Colony 178**

"Oooh!" she went, her lips forming an 'o' once more. "Cute guy! I was wondering if there was one to offset their boss Walker's appearance…he's pretty handsome." With her headset on, she smiled at the monitor as Bishop's flickering mug shot appeared there. Briefly, she lay back against the thin room wall and stared at her dark ceiling. 

So, it had been decided. 

"Mom and Dad always said I should do something with my life," she said earnestly. Then she grinned. "Bet they never thought I'd join some wacko army from Terra." She leaned forward, sitting with her legs crossed, and giggled. When she finished, she leaned forward and began rapidly typing.

**ADDING FILE TO PERSONNEL REGISTRY**

**Serial Number:**

**Password:**

"Data, data, bogus data!" she chanted as she switched on the small secondary processor that was plugged into the primary unit. It beeped, and the small light bulb on it flashed red periodically.

**Serial Number:       0198955555**

**Password:              ************

She smiled at the screen and pressed enter. The network quickly accepted it, as she knew it would. It always did without fail: most computers were virtually unhackable nowadays, with the ten-digit language system, but there were some super-hackers that were able to do the job. Only a few of them, however…to her knowledge, there was only a dozen or so super hackers in the _entire _Earth Sphere. 

Also, she found it amusing that, for the password, she had entered 'Joe Bananas', and the computer had accepted it still.

**ACCEPTED – PLEASE INSERT NEW FILE**

She probably didn't have to do this, but it would make her objective so much easier, she was sure. After all, OZ was enrolling new members every day: if the computer said something, who was to argue?

**NEW PERSONNEL FILE**

**Name/Title:           Maria Rosetto **

**ID/Serial Number:  *PENDING***

**Rank:**                    ***PENDING***

**Sex/Gender:           Female**

**Race/Ethnicity:       Italian Caucasian (European)**

**Birthplace:            Space Colony D0442098, Lagrange Point 1**

**Year of Birth:         After Colony 181**

She sat back and looked at her work, with a sort of pride. Normally, the appearance of such a file from virtually nowhere into the database would arouse suspicion, particularly since OZ was considerably more skilled at computers then the former Alliance. However, current responsibility fell onto that of Lieutenant Walker, the commanding officer of the group she had applied her file in, and, according to very reliable sources, Walker was a talking vegetable. 

Maria Rosetto ran one of her thin hands through her long pink hair and smiled. By the time Walker was able to stand, no doubt, the file would have already been integrated into OZ's formal registry. At the present moment, she was just a Colony Civilian a year beneath the minimum applying age for OZ, and several years under the preferred age of an OZ Officer. In a few days, by sidestepping all the hassle of training or paperwork, she would be a member of OZ, and once the act of computer hacking was ignored of forgotten, would have been a normal soldier as, upon the same evidence, Zechs Merquise or Hilde Schbeiker.  

***

"Thank you for coming again, Kanna," Walker said appreciatively from his bed.

"Well…it is my job, sir." Kanna Kirishima sat down in the small stood next to his bed. She raised her hand to block the glaring light. _Geeze, they could turn down the light in the Colony a bit…_She wiped some perspiration from her forehead. "Anyway, I suppose we should get down to business…" she said, taking out a report from her duffle bag.

"Of course. The Battle of Singapore."

Kanna blinked. _How did he…?_

Clearly pleased, Walker shifted his head and answered her. "Don't be so amazed, I overheard a few nurses speaking about it beyond the door. A great success, I take it?"

She nodded, then remembering that it wouldn't do any good. "Yes, sir. The Southeast Divisions were nearly successful in wiping out three Gundams, with very few loses." She paused. "In truth, only one Gundam was destroyed, according to most recent records. Both of the other Gundam were crippled, but they managed to hijack two HLV modules and escape. With the cooperation of the Colonists, Colonel Une hopes to capture both of the fleeing Gundams within two months." 

"Two months?" echoed Walker from below. "Our 'ambassador' is certainly optimistic about the situation. Low many mobile suits did we loose at Singapore?"

"Very few, when compared to previous encounters with Gundams in OZ or the former Alliance. Three Leo teams have been reported loss so far, and the rescue teams are making more runs to see if there were any they might have missed. In addition…"

She began to explain the location the Gundams were expected to flee in Outer Space, when she realized Walker was chuckling softly to himself.

"Umm…sir?"

He stopped. "I'm sorry, Kanna, but do you know what this means?"

She paused. "More paperwork?" she commented dimly.

"No. We have proven to the world, to the colonies, to Earth Sphere, that the Gundams are not invincible. Contrary to popular belief, OZ is strong enough to fight them. Even if we do not half Zechs Merquise…we are still strong enough. Humanity is on our side from now on. The Gundam Pilots, which were went in by the Colonies, have no where to run, it would seem. At least, no where important."

Kanna nodded wistfully. "Betrayed by their homeland."

"I suppose so, however, as soldiers, it's not _our _problem." He lifted his head slightly. "I will tell you our problem, but it's a secret," he commented. "So, first, you see that small plate of lemons on the medical cart?"

She frowned and turned her head. As Walker had said, there was a small plate of lemon slices on it, neatly arranged. For what purpose, she couldn't imagine. "What about them, sir?"

"Take one of them, and squirt it into the keyhole of the door."

Kanna obediently stood up, took a single lemon slice, and squirted some lemon juice against the keyhole. On the other side, there was a howl of pain, followed by a long stream of audible swearing.

"While you're over there," Walker muttered, in a brighter mood since the cry in pain. "Turn off the intercom. Go ahead."

She flipped the switch underneath the intercom and walked over to the bed. 

"All right," said Walker in a whisper. "Now, at least we can be sure that our conversation is relatively private." His expression seemed to change, from one of self-conceit to general concern. "Our problem now…is Romefeller."

"Romefeller?" she asked. "The Romefeller Foundation?"

He tried to nod. "That's right. OZ, with its policy of foreign-independence, is in the current position to become a long-term power backed by an overwhelming majority. As long as we can retain this stance, we may last ten…twenty years without reform or issue. But this will only last as long as his Excellency's policy of non-intervention in peacetime an be maintained." 

"Your afraid that when, in the event, that Treize Khushrenada must step down, OZ's policy will change."

"Oh, yes, very much so. However, I'm not afraid of Mr. Treize choosing a poor successor…he won't. My suspicion is that it will be Colonel Une, who is a widely recognized figure in OZ already, even more then Treize in Outer Space. And she will follow his policy to the death." He paused, seemingly gathering his words. "What I'm afraid of is that eventually, Romefeller will want more of a payout in their investment in OZ. They will no doubt move to take over Earth first…that is acceptable…but the Colonies…that will be much later. It probably won't happen in your lifetime. But it will destroy everything we have worked so hard to accomplish. Those old fools in Romefeller have no idea what they want besides control and power. I hope to whatever God might exist that, in time, OZ will break free of the Romefeller Foundation and the world's noble families, and his Excellency will dismantle it…"

Kanna Kirishima listened carefully to Walker's synopsis, but in the back of her head, she played around with the idea of her own lineage. The Kirishima Family and its respective ownerships in property and commerce, which made up the small but tightly-nit Kirishima Foundation, had a single seat in the Romefeller Parliment. It wasn't much, but it was still a seat, and in a society where Democracy had been proved flawed and ineffective generations ago, a vote was only acquired by skill, or, if you were lucky, by birthright. 

Walker stopped talking eventually, when he noticed that Kirishima had stopped answering. "…I'm sorry, I forgot about your family…"

Kanna immediately focused back onto the task at hand. She gave her barking laugh and smirked. "Please. The reason I became a soldier was so that I could stop being a noblewoman. You know, it's not easy having such rich heritage…even if the blood's been mixed with so many different nationalities that all that really matters is the name."

The two laughed, Walker stopping soon when he realized laughing caused his kidneys to hurt. "Well, I'm afraid I wouldn't know about that. I have no heritage, literally."

Kanna blinked. "Well, you have ancestors and…"

"Not really."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't have any ancestors, period." He shifted around casually. "That's just the way it is."

"Sir, that's not possible. Even if you were a clone…"

"I'm not a clone."

"…I'm just saying, even if you were a clone, you'd still have some relatives. Your original would be your closest-of-kin. How can you have no family…are they all dead?"

"I don't know. Possibly. However, I never had any to start with."

He could tell she didn't understand, even without seeing him. "Kirishima…you're part American, right?"

She nodded. "On my father's side, yes. As are you, I imagine?"

"I'm nothing, really. If anything, I'm British. I seem to be Caucasian, and I was raised in Liverpool. I have no idea where I was born. You can't trust the records…those years were chaotic times."

"Still, you must have some sort of family…"

"What I _do _know, is that I wasn't born by a woman. There's your answer," he smirked.

She blinked. "I thought you said you weren't a clone…"

"I was artificially grown, in a tank, just like a few thousand other humans. You know…medical corporations make them…they're about the size of phone booths. Typically leased by couples who are either sterile or just can't reproduce. You don't need egg and sperm…just take DNA from each parent, insert it, and pay the rent and maintenance on the damn thing for the next nine months. Baby created from water, oxygen, and nutrient fluid. Perfectly normal, if done properly." 

She blinked. She had heard about the process before, but she had never actually met a person born that way. At least, not that she was aware of. 

"Costs a bundle, though. You probably though I was American because of my surname, 'Walker'. Don't know how that, or my other two names came about, but they did. Funny thing is that, if the DNA is extracted from only one human or a pair of identical twins, then the end result is technically a clone. Still, its healthier to have mixed genetic material. Helps correct most bugs in the genome."

"Wow," she commented. 

"That's enough about me," he muttered. "Do you have anything else to report?" he asked. 

"Iyey, sir."

"You are dismissed. Watch for the press on the way out."

She nodded gravely and stood up, walking towards the door. Halfway there, Walker called out to her again.

"Oh, and Kirishima?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"It's not necessary for you to keep this conversation private, if it makes you at all uncomfortable."

She swallowed. "I'm all right, sir."

And with that, she exited the room, and he was alone again.

***

Walker couldn't take it anymore. It was unbearable.

As he recovered from his state of mental and, eventually, physical handicap, his attitude grew increasingly restless. Every minute spent lying still in his bed, whether intentional or unintentional, was more intolerable then the last. 

It only got worse when he had his first reencounter with the Press. 

First, it was two female reporters, dressed as nurses, who had smuggled miniaturized sound equipment and tiny, low-resolution cameras into his room in their lingerie. Needless to say, they tried to interview him, and as Walker's fingers rapidly clicked the panic button on his bedside at a rate of three clicks a second, he asked them about it. When they explained, they seemed fairly amused and embarrassed. Walker just stared at them with his narrow eyes opened as wide as golf-balls and an expression on his face that was not completely of disgust, but rather of mental incapacity.

As a result of this, he became increasingly hostile to the authentic nurses. Walker even went as far as demanding that they put their underwear on the doorknob to his room before entering. He didn't mean it, of course, but it was intentional: it minimized the number of visitors he had, which meant he had more time to use the toilet in the small wash-closet joined to his room, a difficult task when you couldn't walk or use one of your arms, or see particularly well.

He did grow healthier, and when he was no longer at the mercy of the hospital staff, he decided that he had no intention of wasting any time here. It had been another week after Kirishima paid him a visit that he decided it was time to leave: he could use both of his arms fairly well, despite the fact they were both wrapped in bandages, as well as one of his legs. To compensate for his slight incapacity, he used a metal rod as a crutch and wobbled out of the Hospital, just as he had done with the Third Alliance Hospital on Earth prior to Operation _Daybreak_.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S GONE?" screamed Kanna into her phone once she was informed of the current predicament. "HOW COULD HE LEAVE? THE MAN IS INCAPACITATED!"

"Well, he seemed to have broken a window, and escaped by climbing through a telecom wire, but…"

She screamed into the receiver again. "HOW COULD HE DO THAT? THE MAN IS BLIND AND CAN BARELY USE HIS ARMS…"

"…uh, we have reason to believe that he is no longer completely blind in one of his eyes, but as I was saying, before he did that…"

"Hey Kanna, where's the fire?" 

The taller woman turned to see Dack Bishop enter, at the same time fumbling with a small multi-colored plastic cube in his hand. She narrowed her eyes. "What the hell are you doing?"

He shrugged. "Well, we had this bet and…"

"Listen to me, you incompetent cretins!" she hissed into the headset. "You better hope to God that you were fucking smart enough to plant Walker with some sort of tracking beacon while he was under the sheets, because I hold you all directly responsible for this, and WILL SHUT DOWN THAT HOSPITAL IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM!"

"…there is one thing you should know…before he escaped, Walker broke open the closet in his room and removed everything in it…"

"Well, what was in the closet?" asked Dack, overhearing. 

"Well, among other things sir, an OZ normal suit, his uniform, and a pistol in a holster we found. We suspect that the pistol is loaded…"

"THAT'S NOT MY PROBLEM! YOUR HOSPITAL OWES ME A LIEUTENANT!" She was about to slam down the receiver when the voice on the other end spoke up once more.

"…where should we start looking?"

"BAKA NE!" she screamed into it and slammed the receiver down.  She turned to Dack. "The Lieutenant bailed out at the hospital."

He blinked his blue-green eyes several times. "You're kidding me. I thought you said he could barely think."

Kanna's face contorted. "I said she was paralyzed, not senile, you idiot!" She had the right mind to walk over to Dack and punch his cheerful face inwards, or maybe jam that plastic cube he was always playing with up his nose, but resisted the urge at the last moment. There would be time for that later. She pulled up her uniform top from her waist and began buttoning it closed. "Come on, we need to find him, before the press decides to crucify him. Where's Mazuri?"

The younger man just stared at her with a blank expression that indicated he had no idea. She sighed and buttoned her maroon and gold collar. "Okay, forget Mazuri, just come on!"

***

From somewhere at the bottom of the concrete chasms in the center of the Colony, the smell of roasting coffee—synthetic most likely, but coffee nonetheless—came floating down the street. Walker paused involuntarily, nearly falling to the ground. For perhaps three seconds he was back in the half-forgotten office at Corsica. Then a vehicle honked a horn behind him, seeming to cut off the smell as abruptly as it had been a sound.

He had walked several kilometers through the crowded streets, and a large ulcerous growth on his kidney, the result of forcing himself out of the ward earlier then he should have, was throbbing. He wore the light blue OZ norm suit that they had recovered him in, his cracked helmet hooked onto the belt, the material of the suit ripped in a half-dozen places and stained with dried blood. He stuck out of the crowd tremendously, and to walk by himself was always slightly dangerous. It was inevitable that the Colony Press would eventually find him; they had probably already done so and were monitoring him from a distance with their cameras. Now it was just a matter of time before they were brave enough to approach him in person.

_If there is hope_, he had written in his journal, _it lies in the Colonists_. The words kept coming back to him as he stumbled down the street, holding his side, and inadvertently bringing attention to himself. The idea itself seemed to be reasonable, but when one looked out on the streets and met the Colonists face to face, it became an act of faith.

Walker passed a small newsstand on the sidewalk. One of the papers read _Times_, and he picked it up and unfolded it, with some effort. On the cover was a picture released from OZ Higher Command, of a photograph taken of the Battle of Singapore. The battle, which had occurred on Earth only a few days ago, had been a huge success,  with two divisions of OZ Leo's and Tragos' acting as fire-support managed not only to hold of attacks from three of the Gundams, but even force one to self-destruct. Walker himself had seen only a few reports delivered to him by Kanna, but loses ranged at about four Leo teams, which added up to about eleven Leos: fairly small when compared to the previous encounters with the Gundam. In fact, the battle group had only planned to face two, the Zero-Two and Zero-Four, but the arrival of the Zero-Five had caught them by surprised. Zero-Two and Zero-Five had escaped into Outer Space, it seemed.

Zero-Four, on the other hand, had not. The pilot had self-destructed, taking three Leos with him in the blast field. As Walker red through his better eye, he grimaced: he had always wanted to have had the honor of destroying Zero-Four, along with its boy pilot. Still, what was important was that it was done.

Now, maybe the voices would stop.

For a time, Walker failed to notice the expression of the young boy staring up at him from the news stand. Finally, Walker turned to face him with his better eye. "Oh…yea…hold on," he muttered, reaching into his norm suit pocket, trying to find some sort of currency.

The boy's face lit up. "I know you! You're the guy on the magazine! Wow!"

Discarding the newspaper, Walker shifted his eyes quickly then, reaching into his space suit, pulled out a small black device. He pressed it against the boy's neck as he babbled on, and there was a buzzing sound. The boy jerked wildly, then fell to the ground, accompanied by a the distinct smell of something cooking. 

He looked at the black device and grinned. "Tasers. What a great idea. Of course, for someone Kanna's size, you'd have to use a cattle prod, I suppose."

Still holding it in his hand, he inserted it back into the hole in his norm suit and proceeded to walk down the street, only pausing when he felt a momentary pain in his side. At first, Walker disregarded it, reasoning that the ulcer was probably hurting or something. Soon it became more than a slight itch, a definite burning sensation, and the smell of something cooking came back. Walker grabbed his side and grunted, falling to his knees, as the burning sensation was replaced by a sharp pain. Not very discreetly, he forced himself into an alley and lay against a concrete wall. The pain dimmed, and he reached into his space suit, and pulled out the cause.

His taser.

He looked at it and reflected. "I still say it's a good ideal," he muttered, laying his hand down. As if to answer him, the taser started up again, and he howled in pain. "Shit, shit!" If Walker had had a sharp enough blade, he would have quickly removed his hand. The synthetic-polymer glove was beginning to merge with the taser with the heat, and he began repeatedly striking his hand against the wall.

And then, it stopped. Walker's hand fell limp and he just looked at it, then sat still and tried to breathe.

It was then he first heard it. The perky, happy voice that would haunt him for years. The voice of youth. The chirping, Italian-accented English.

"Wow! It's finally you! I went through a _lot _of trouble finding you…"

***

As the black armored Mercedes-Benz passed through the narrow streets of the Colony, Dack Bishop continued with the task he had assigned upon himself.

All his life, everyone had told him that, invariably, he went amount to something unremarkable and unimportant. It was the message reiterated by everyone, his parents, his siblings, his teachers, even his instructors at OZ. Less then a month after he enrolled in the Alliance, both of his instructors were determined to beat the fact into his mind. It was amazing he had it onto OZ at all…chances were, they had needed someone to do the grunt work, and Dack had jumped on the opportunity, infatuated with the concept of being a member of the 'Special Mobile Suit Corps'. 

Dack rotated a side of the plastic cube he still had, lining up three red squares and three yellow ones. Other than those two colored rows, the color arrangement was still completely random, and he still had a lot more to go.

"Kanna, tell me again how we're going to find the Lieutenant?" he said jokingly, not looking up from the cube.

In the seat opposite of him in the car's spacious cabin, Kanna sat unnaturally still in her seat and looked up at him sharply. "Fine," she hissed. "We can assume that since the Lieutenant took back his space suit, he might as well be wearing at the current moment. And every OZ normal  suit is equipped with a tracking beacon, incase the body gets lost in space, so that our Search and Rescue teams might be able to locate it."

"And how do we know the beacon is still working?"

She frowned and spun the small notebook-computer on her lap so that the monitor faced him. On the screen was a green overlay of the interior of the Colony, including streets and buildings. Between one of the two light-green squares that made up the buildings, a red circle flashed. "If it wasn't working, we wouldn't be getting this transmission, now would we? Walker probably didn't bother dismantling his beacon because no Civilian Colonists have the equipment to track the thing."

Dack nodded, pretending to inspect the screen carefully, setting the cube aside for a moment. "I see," he commented. "Can we use that to track Mazuri?"

"The beacons aren't embedded into OZ uniforms, unfortunately."

"That's a shame." He returned to his cube. Kanna rapped the glass window that separated the passenger and driver's cabin. The driver, a young Colonist dressed in a neat black and white uniform, turned and lowered the glass.

"Take a right here," she ordered. "Then keep straight for another hundred meters."

"Of course, ma'am." He raised the glass and continued slowly driving. 

Kanna turned her attention back to the computer. _He's not moving anymore…Well, it could be worse. A Colonist could be tracking these beacon too. _

***

Walker slung himself against the wall. "You!" he barked out viciously. Then he paused. "Who the hell are you?"

The intruder stepped closer, so he might see her better. It was a short girl, probably around fourteen or fifteen, with pink hair in a braid. She wore what appeared to be a light-blue collared shirt, except it was a bit too small and without any sleeves, and a short black skirt. However, more than her unusual appearance, Walker's attention was directed to the small object in her hand.

"Oh, this?" she asked, waving it in front of him. "Sorry about that. How's your hand, by the way?"

He held it up angrily. The taser had fused with the normal suit glove. 

"Like I said, I'm sorry about that." She paused for a moment, and stuck out her hand jokingly. "Nice to meet you, sir!"

Walker just stared at her viciously through his beady eyes. "Who…are…you?" he repeated, more insistently this time.

She sighed. "Okay, okay. I'm Maria Rosetto." She leaned forwards toward him. "Sound familiar?"

He lay against the wall as he did before. "No."

"MA-RIA RO-SET-TO!"

"…"

"…you have heard of me, right?"

"Not really."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Absolutely."

"Oh…" The girl blinked. "Okay then. Sorry to bother you. I must have the wrong person." She turned around and set off, leaving Walker behind. Over her shoulder, she called out. "You don't happen to know where I could find Chris Walker, do you?"

"I am Chris Walker," answered Walker. A split-second later, he realized how stupid that had been. 

Maria stopped in mid-footstep and her face contorted. She spun around and grabbed Walker by the norm suit. "Damn it! Don't people like you ever check your team registry?"

Walker blinked at her oddly. "_Team _registry? I'm surprised that, as a Colonist, you would know about that…"

"I know a lot more than you think," she taunted. 

"I'm sure," he mumbled, letting his head lean to a side. 

"Well…here, look!" She hit a few keys on the black thing she had been holding, and some words came out on green on the screen, and she held it up to Walker. Walker took it in his other arm clumsily and inspected it. 

**OZ 4th Interstellar Mobile Suit Team Summary**

**Weaponry Type:               OZ-12SMS Taurus; Taurus Carrier System**

**Commanding Officer:       Christopher Berker Walker, 1st Lieutenant**

**Subordinate Officers:       Kanna Kirishima, Warrant Officer  
                                    Ali Mazuri, Corporal  
                                    Dackard Bishop, Field Sergeant   
                                    Maria Rosetto, Rank Pending**

"Well, isn't that unusual?" he commented. He looked up from the screen at her face, then back down at the screen, then up at her again. "So, you say you're Maria Rosetto?"

"That's right," she chirped, thinking that he was getting the idea.

"And since you're listed here under the OZ Registry, you must have been accepted into OZ." He scrutinized her. "You look too young to be fifteen, and they're supposed to call me personally. Must be a clever forgery." 

"WHAT?!" _Damn it, he's not stupid._ "W…wait!" She pointed at him as he began to stand up and walk away.

Walker's mind was now on something else. "Ali Mazuri, eh? So that's what the initial stands for…" 

"STOP! I didn't go through this whole damn thing for nothing!"

"There's nothing to discuss…it's not authentic. That's it." He numbly raised his arm as he walked away, waving to her sarcastically. 

_You've got to be determined to get anything good out of life_, thought Maria. _Age old canon. _She pressed a key on the black device and held it down.

Sparks played out of Walker's hand and he howled in pain again, stumbling against the concrete near the opening of the corridor. Hastily, he managed to loosen the glove and hurl it against the wall, a shower of blue lights striking in all directions. Inspected his red, swollen hand, he sighed and began to rise to his feet. 

"Where are you going to go?" she demanded. "Huh?"

"Probably to a pub," he commented, not looking at her. He paused for a moment. "Exactly why are you so anxious to join OZ, anyway? We're soldiers…it's hardly a suitable profession. Especially for a young Colonist."

She looked down at her feet nervously. "Listen…I have my reasons."

"Well, in that case." He put his swollen under his arm. "When you turn fifteen, go apply at one of our recruitment stations. If you're good, then you'll get it. Probably not, though."

Walker went on walking, not conscious that Maria was staring angrily at her back. She made another attempt. "Listen, you need me."

"No we don't." _I can't believe I'm having this conversation with someone who has barely begun puberty. _

"Think about it…" she appealed to him. "If I could hack into the OZ Database…I must be a pretty incredible hacker."

He paused, and straightened himself up, and turned to her. To Maria, his expression was indecipherable. He was waiting, somewhat sternly, as he stood there, for her to speak, but what would she say? 

"I suppose so. Not many hackers left in this world," he admitted slowly. "Most of them were trained by OZ."

There was a glimmer in her eye. "Then you'll employ me?"

He shook his head, smiling. "No. Absolutely not."

She moaned. "Why the hell not?"

"Because, I don't want you under my command. It's probably the most God-forsaken idea I've heard in a long time, ever since Mazuri suggested I started dating." He grunted, realizing that he couldn't stay arguing like this forever. He could definitely feel the bleeding starting again. "Now, _listen_. You're just a kid. In a year, you won't legally be one any more, so I can't stop you. Go ahead and join OZ, and bring your hacking skills along with you."

He turned his head and continued walking with a sort of relief. Now, maybe he could get a painkiller or something…

_"You want the press to get off your back, don't you?"_ she shouted. 

***

He stopped again, and stumbled to the concrete. After he managed to stand up, he looked at her and breathed deeply. "What do you mean?"

The Press-Card had been her secret weapon. "I'm a Colonist. I have a lot better idea of what turns the press off than you do OZ soldiers do."

Maria stared at him for a few moments longer. He looked so much weaker then on the cover of all those nosey magazines and pamphlets. After the stopping of his footsteps the alley seemed deadly silent. The seconds marched past, enormous. With difficulty, Maria kept her eyes fixed on Walker's. Then suddenly, the grim face broke down into what might have been the beginnings of a smile. 

"You want to listen to me now?" she asked, grinning smartly.

"Are you just trying to keep me here, or do you actually have a way of stopping _BBC_?"

She nodded. "Go and kill Himmler, first."

"Himmler?"

"That Alliance butcher pent up in a Colony."

"Corporal Umar-Safia." 

"Whatever. Kill him, and _BBC _will swarm onto you. They'll overload the Colony's communications grid. I can shut it down by pressing a single key for up to twenty hours."

Walker picked a small piece of synthetic cloth out of his hand, nodding.

"And OZ will come to relocate you."

"And all I have to do is bring you with me," he finished for her, nodding his head. He looked at her directly again. "You must really want off this Colony."

"I knew the only way to do that is to join OZ. It wouldn't be hard just stealing a shuttle, but I can't pilot the damn thing, and I don't have any programs that can. That's the only reason I want to join your cadre of Terran Napoleanists."  

He chuckled. "…that's a very good deal. I wish you had said that before. But I don't think that I can't fight against Umar-Safia. He's an ace, and he forced me to bail out of my machine. It's still in that Colony." 

Now leaning against the wall, Maria sighed. "Damn. I knew I couldn't trust them."

"Trust who?"

"There was an article in _Time_ magazine. They said that as soon as you were healthy, you were going to go off and fight again. Looks like you're neither at the moment." She cocked her head. "I'm just a hacker. I can't get you one of those damned mobile suits. Not yet, anyway."

Walker sat down and thought a moment. "Actually, I think I can get a Taurus." He looked up at her. "I'll need your help, though."

She blinked. "Huh?"

***

The lights in the side hangar of the Colony slowly came on one by one when Lieutenant Walker flipped the wall switch. Balancing himself with a metal pole, he stood on the overhead walkway. 

Behind him, Maria slowly stepped into the hangar, temporarily blinded by the sheer brightness of the lights. It was a strange feeling for her, being one of the few civilian Colonists allowed into such a restricted area. Granted, she could always hack into the system and electronically open the doors, but there were living, breathing OZ security guards, clad in their green uniforms and armed with submachine guns that she couldn't hack into. Despite Walker's assurances, she didn't feel safe. 

Walker waddled across the catwalk towards the center of the hangar, a dozen meters above the ground. He grabbed onto the guardrail and looked over carefully. It was hard to miss what he was looking for. Once his vision was clear enough to see it, he smiled and turned to where he thought Maria was.

"Hey! Kid! It's over here!" he hissed, hoping the technicians and guards beneath him wouldn't hear. 

Her pupils contracting, she blinked several times and scrambled over to him, but stopped as she saw what he was looking at. Standing before her was the huge black chassis of an OZ-12SMS Taurus, towering up above her, with its darkened yellow monoeye and dark violet armor. She stepped back slowly, almost falling over the handrail, when Walker grabbed her bare arm to steady her.  

"Jesus Christ," he said jokingly. "You'd think you never saw a mobile suit before. Didn't you see those Leos while the Alliance occupied this Colony?"

"God damn, it's…it's huge…" she whispered. "It's so much larger then a Leo."

"No it's not," he mumbled, letting go of her. "Just your imagination." 

"That thing has to be twenty meters tall!"

"Oh, come off it," he rasped. "It's not even seventeen. Besides, this one is pretty heavily damaged," he explain, pointing at it. It was Kanna Kirishima's mobile suit, the only one that was still capable of flight after the disastrous battle with Corporal Muhammad Mariam Umar-Safia. Repairs had begun, naturally, but had progressed rather slowly. It would have probably been quicker just to send it back to _Barge_ and have it completely refitted and overhauled. Still, just by looking at it, Walker guessed it was functioning at about 70% capacity, as oppose to the normal mid-nineties, but knowing Kanna, it had probably been modified to have extra power in the arms and legs, sacrificing some from the beam rifle. 

_Doesn't matter, beam rifle must have been destroyed_. He looked to his side. On the catwalk were several large metal barrels that were completely unadorned except for the letters **Hg**. The atomic element of mercury. On the outside, the barrels were coated by a layer of nitrogen frost, probably in the event of a leak, it wouldn't evaporate into the gas that was so poisonous for humans in such a unventilated area. 

"What do we do now?" she asked, kneeling. "I mean, I know I'm supposed to be a hacker and all, but…"

"Each Taurus is equipped with a new Mobile Doll system," he explained quickly, crouching down. 

"Mobile Doll?"

"It's the AI that pilots a Taurus when a human isn't. That means that all of a Taurus' systems can be directly accessed electronically, unlike with the Leo's." He discreetly crossed the catwalk so that he was directly in front of the cockpit, and inspected it. The hatch was open. "Looks like it'll fly pretty well, but the problem is that I don't have any weapons." He rubbed his chin. "Before we try to get it out, we need to secure some sort of weapon."

Maria pointed. "What about that?"

Walker turned his head. Locked inside a protective harness was a large gray contrivance more than ten meters long. Standard heavy beam cannon, just like the one he had originally used. "Yes, yes, that'll do nicely. Provided that either the batteries are charged on the Taurus' fusion reactor can generate sufficient power." He looked down at the hangar floor. "As for that guard…" 

The Lieutenant grabbed Maria's arm, and she gave a brief squeal. The guard looked up with his submachine gun. "Sir! I thought you were in the ward!" 

"Never mind that, Private. I found this little girl snooping around the hangar!" He reached into his norm suit pocket and pulled out the small 9mm semi-automatic that was commonplace throughout OZ, and pressed it against Maria's thigh as she squirmed. "You're doing a pretty sloppy job when it comes to security, you know that?"

"I apologize, Lieutenant Walker! I wasn't even aware you had returned to active service yet!" 

"I'll let it slip this time, provided you do something for me." 

"Anything, sir!" 

He looked at the spot next to the guard on the hangar floor. "Move about half a meter to your right."

Frowning, the Private complied. "Like this?"

"Perfect." Walker set his pistol aside and grabbed the barrel of mercury he had seen earlier. Before the guard could react, he pushed it between a space where the guard rails parted and let it fall. The barrel smacked against the guard's shoulders, knocking him to the floor, but did not burst. The Private moaned in pain and let go of his gun, underneath the painfully heavy barrel. 

Maria squealed again and broke free of Walker as he released his grip. She looked nervously at the pistol. "I really thought you were going to shoot me!"

"I don't shoot little brats," he commented. "Now, close the hangar doors."

Pulling out a small computer from her pocket, she began doing so rapidly. The four hangar doors, as well as the one door on the second level which Walker had entered through, immediately slammed shut and locked. After retrieving his pistol, he stopped his eyes on the remaining metal barrels. Inside his head, the gears of his mind slowly turned once more. 

"Kid," he mumbled when they stopped turning. 

She didn't look up from her computer. "What?"

"Help me get these into the cockpit," he instructed. 

Momentarily, her eyes broke contact with the tiny computer screen. "Get them in there yourself," she smirked before returning to the task at hand. 

He sighed and, with considerable difficult, move the barrels into his cockpit with his remaining arm, one barrel at a time. Once he reached the third barrel, he was thoroughly exhausted and gasping for breath. Lowering himself into the cockpit, he sat between the barrels and strapped himself into the cockpit seat. 

"Don't you need a complete space suit?" she asked, still rapidly punching the keys on her little computer.

"Not that it's any of your business, but a Taurus is equipped with a life-support system, though a normal suit is preferable." Inside the cockpit, he looked at one of the small overhead screens. "Damn, Kanna decided to be careful. It's locked on autopilot. I won't be able to take manual control until I'm past the range of this Colony." He turned back to her, and began to put on his shattered helmet for protection. "You'll need to seize control of the autopilot launching and landing system."

"I've been working on that," she assured him. "It might take a few minutes though. This system is pretty tightly locked."

"No rush," he assured her. "Besides, that'll give me time to do something else I had planned." He pressed a small surface on the console and the panel popped open, revealing a small blue number keypad and a tiny screen. Pausing a moment, he thought about what he was going to do, wondering if was such a good idea. 

"What's that?" she asked, distracted.

"Subspace radio communication frequency. Pretty old stuff, dating back from the Before Colony era," he explained as he punched in a number combination. "They used to call it something like Eae-Em and Ef-Em." 

"What do you need that for?"

"It lets you send messages, though they're in number code to make them shorter. Unlike encrypted frequencies, they aren't tight-wave so they're easy enough to locate but impossible to jam unless you're at the source." He continued punching keys. "Sort of a backup system. Problem's that the transmission is very slow, and there's a lag time of around an hour or so. General Catalonia thought it up about a decade ago."

Suddenly, Maria surprise him from above, hanging from the cockpit hatch, upside down. "Who was he?"

He rolled his eyes as he kept pressing the keys. "_She_ was a famous general that was the original commander assigned to the Alliance Specials. Very brilliant tactician, though that didn't save her for dying in the Specials. And seeing how you probably don't know who the Specials were, I'll explain that as well. The United Earth Sphere Alliance Special Mobile Suit Corps was the original title and position of OZ, before we became independent…"

"In Operation _Daybreak_?" she finished for him, looking up briefly.

He smiled thinly. "You're not as stupid as I thought."

She stuck out his tongue at him, then returned to her computer. 

As he was locking his helmet into place, Maria sat down with her legs crossed and continued her work. Walker looked at her briefly and began to chuckle. "So, you wanted to join OZ just so you could be transferred off this Colony with the elimination of Umar-Safia, and then desert. You realize that, if we found you, we'd either have to shoot you or place you under arrest."

"Who says you'd find me?" she retorted. She pressed a last key, and the Taurus' cockpit lit up, a combination of red and green lights. Maria looked at the primary hangar door. "I guess there's a magnetic field keeping the atmosphere in," she commented. "Keeps gases from passing through, though denser matter has no problem." 

"…"

"All right. Now, this could be a little bumpy," she warned. "I've never done this before."

The Taurus shuddered violently as the arms lifted up. Walker jerked around in his cockpit, and quickly regained his position. "Thanks for the warning," he commented dryly. 

Step by step, the Taurus jerked over to the wall, stomping over a small maintenance vehicle on the hangar floor. Licking her lips, Maria carefully moved her fingers across the small screen of her computer, controlling the SMS' range of movement. She lifted the Taurus' right arm, which promptly slammed into the metal hangar wall immediately to the beam cannon's left, leaving a very large dent. Frowning, she tried again, slamming the Taurus' palm against the beam cannon and leaving a streak on the wall. 

From inside the open cockpit, Walker rolled his eyes. "Try turning around," he finally said. "And backing up into it."

"What?"

"_Just do it!_"__

Mumbling something about non-charismatic and non-charming terrestrial military officers, she rapidly spun the Taurus around, and would have launched Walker out of his cockpit had it not been for the restraining harnesses. Stepping back slowly, she backed into the beam cannon. Half a meter away, the beam cannon emitted a high-pitch whining noise, then locked onto the small port on the Taurus' spine and midsection. On the cockpit monitors, diagnostics for the weapon came up. Walker inspected the screens and gave the girl a thumbs-up.

Maria returned with a triumphant grin which quickly faded as soon as she tried to move the Taurus forward. While it was connected to the beam cannon, the beam cannon itself was still restrained to the wall. Walker lowered his head to hide his own laughing within his helmet, as Maria gritted her teeth and programmed the Taurus to lean forward, eventually ripping free of the restraints. 

"That's good," chuckled Walker out loud. "Now, close the cockpit hatch and begin normal launch procedure, all right?"

She nodded, looking at her computer screen. "Just remember, Lieutenant, you and I have an agreement. If you decide to just bug out after you leave, I can and will have the press hounding you. And unless you're willing to kill _everyone _in _BBC_…"

"All right, all right, I understand. We have a deal," he assured her as the cockpit hatched closed. 

_And try not to get yourself killed like last time_, Maria thought, letting go a deep sigh. Subconsciously, she grabbed onto the guard rail as the hangar's larger doors slowly slid open, revealing a black backdrop plagued by tiny flashing stars. On the Taurus' feet, blue gas began to pour out and was quickly ignited into blinding blue streaks. Maria Rosetto held her arm up to shield her eyes as the Taurus blasted off. 

***

"We're screwed."

"Come on, Kanna! I don't want to have to hear that sort of pessimism from my CO."

"Okay…how about this? _We're screwed!_"

"That's more like it."

Kanna Kirishima and Dack Bishop had briefly given up the search when the tracking beacon disappeared from view, possibly due to electrical overload, and had paused for a short lunch at a pricey Colonial restaurant called _Dino's_, which was decorated to look like an old Victorian-era club with a Latin twist, with lots of oak and fat old paintings. It was popular with business persons who wished to impress clients by buying them steaks the size of St. Bernard's. It also had a group of, to Kanna, short men dressed in elaborate black uniforms with giant matching hats, with Dack explained was called a _mariachi band_. She had never seen one before. 

Upon entering, Kanna and Dack were both immediately greeted politely by a well-dressed waiter who spoke with an increasingly common Spanish-Italian accent. They received a table towards the restaurant's stage, next to a table of four lawyers who were talking loudly about golf clubs. Kanna had never known Colonists actually could play golf _inside _a Colony. Dack was preoccupied with eating his free steak and working on his plastic cube.

"I can't believe we have any leads on him…" she mumbled, holding the side of her head.

"Could be worse," said Dack, cutting off a piece of steak. 

"How? We have no idea where he would normally go, and he hasn't shown up at any OZ facilities. The press, perhaps as an act of God, have not been able to find him, though at this point, it is a mixed blessing." She stabbed her fork into her steak and sighed, resting her head against her arms. 

Dack paused from his steak. "You think it possible he got off the Colony?" he asked.

Kanna opened her mouth to respond, inhaling deeply, when she suddenly coughed, and turned to the table next to theirs. The lawyers wwere puffing more vigorously than before; a dense cloud of smoke billowed outward from their table. Slowly, she set down her fork and rose, then stepped calmly towards the smoky table, then stood there motionlessly until she received the attention of all four lawyers. Naturally, all four of them were sitting down, and having the shorter-build of the Colonist, were about eye-level with Kanna's waist. 

"Gentlemen," she said in a uncharacteristically polite tone of voice. "Would you mind putting your cigars out?"

The lawyer to Kanna's immediate left, Colony Lawyer A, cocked his head and assumed an exaggeratedly quizzical expression, as though he hadn't heard correctly.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked. 

"I asked you," repeated Kanna from above. "If you would mind putting your cigars out."

"As matter of fact, we _would _mind," said Lawyer A. This got smiles from Colony Lawyers B, C, and D.

"The reason I ask," said Kanna, still calm, "Is, perhaps you never thought of this, but when you light those things, besides the proven cancer ailment, everybody else has to smell your smoke. I got a nice sirloin over there, which cost the restaurant twenty-eight pesos, and it tastes like I'm eating a cigar."

"Listen, _OZ Lady_," said Colony Lawyer B, eyeing her belt buckle. "Number one, there's no rule against smoking in this restaurant. And number two, you are _way _outta line."

"Hai," said Kanna. "Number one, my name is not OZ Lady. Number two, I'm not talking about rules here. I'm talking about _etiquette_. There's no rule that says I can't come over here and spit on your entrée, but I'm not going to, because it's bad _etiquette_. It detracts from your dining experience, you know? I'm just saying, I don't screw up your lunch, you don't need to stink up everyone else's. So, one more time, I'm asking very nicely by my standards, please put out the cigars, all right?"

"Are you serious?" asked Colony Lawyer C, across the table. 

"Hai," said Kanna.

"Incredible," said Colony Lawyer C, to his colleagues. "Fucking incredible! Do you _believe _this girl?"

"Listen, _OZ Lady_," said Colony Lawyer D, to Kanna. "We're paying customers here, and we happen to like cigars, and if you don't, tough shit."

"That's right, _OZ Lady_," commented Lawyer A. He inhaled his cigar deeply, then, holding the cigar in his hand, turned his moth toward Kanna and blew a long stream of smoke in her face. Still, she did not move. 

When he was finished, Lawyer A casually said, "So, listen, _OZ Lady_, why don't you just _uhhhk_…"

Colony Lawyer A was unable to finish telling Kanna what she should shove, because Kanna had put her partially-gloved hand on his shoulder and squeezed it firmly. She did not appear to be exerting herself, but Colony Lawyer A had gone rigid. 

"_Uhhhk_," he continued. 

Dack watched on from his table with considerable interest. 

With her free hand, Kanna took Colony Lawyer A's cigar and put it out in his tequila. The other lawyers straighted up as though they were preparing to stand and do something, but Kanna shot her violet eyes at each of them in alphabetical order – B, C, D – and they remained seating. 

Releasing Colony Lawyer A, who grabbed at his shoulder and moaned loudly, Kanna slowly walked around the table to Colony Lawyer B, who winced abruptly as Kanna firmly relieved him of his cigar and dropped it into his tequila. By this time, Colony Lawyers C and D put out their cigars unassisted.

"Arigato, sirs," said Kanna, in a sarcastic but nonetheless polite tone.

Colony Lawyers D, who was farthest away from the Amazon from OZ, said, "You realize that you have committed assault."

"I know," smiled Kanna. "Back on Earth, you really have to beat the crap out of somebody."

She returned to her table, where Dack was quietly clapping his glove hands together, until he realized Kanna was not in the mood for such antics. Abruptly, his pager went off, and he grabbed it and read the screen.

"What is it?" she asked, sitting down.

"There's been a disturbance in a Hangar in Area Three. A chamber has been sealed off from inside, apparently."

"Let's check it out. There's no point in us staying here." 

***

To Umar-Safia, it didn't get much worse than this.

It wasn't that he was evil. That was ridiculous. There were no _evil _people anymore. Humanity had evolved to the point where being _evil_ was, for the most part, impractical and a waste of time, not to mention unethical. 

There were lots of different types of people…the logical ones, the ethical sorts, the religious fanatics…but none of them were really _evil_. Even the mass-genocide that occurred in the _Before Colony _era wasn't a result of someone wanting to be evil. Whoever was responsible honestly thought they were doing the right thing, at some point or another. 

In the cockpit of his Leo, he crossed his arms and sat there. He had used the last of his spare equipment to bring his mobile suit back to effectiveness, though if he wanted to continue living after this, he would have to change his ways considerably. OZ had won in Outer Space, that much was clear. It just came down to whoever had superior weapons, better tacticians, or support of the local population. OZ had all three. 

Much of his hopes had diminished when he had lost contact with Colonel Gwinter, the leading Alliance officer in Outer Space. 

The Former-Alliance Corporal looked down at one of the surfaces on his control console. He had intercepted a radio transmission, which he had quickly determined to be from Lieutenant Walker of the OZ, once he had deciphered the message. 

As a radio transmission, there was also was the fact that the lag time was at least an hour, and the message was encoded in numbers, requiring that it be fairly simple. None the less, Walker got straight to the point.   

**I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU CORPORAL**

Stop.

**YOU KNOW WHERE TO MEET**

Stop.

Indeed he did know, at least, if Walker was thinking the same way he was. His thoughts went back to the empty chamber with the two Leo wrecks in it, stripped clean of any useful parts. There was an advantage to him, since he had gotten to know that general area very well, but there was always the likely possibility that Walker had set an ambush of sorts. Still, there were still two mutilated chassis of OZ's space mobile suits, called the _Taurus_. While he recognized that the wrecks were powerful potential weapons, Umar-Safia was hardly a weapons engineer: repairing and overhauling his Leo was the limit to extent of his knowledge. 

And if he didn't go, they would send those damned AI-controlled mobile dolls to hunt him down. 

Slowly, he reached into one of the pockets in his normal suit and pulled out a small photograph. A picture of himself, his wife, and their unborn child. He looked at it for a few moments, then inserted it into a flap on the control surfaces. Leaning back into his padded seat, he flipped a series of overhead switches and the Leo groaned to life. It rose from its kneeling position and the torch built into the monoeye came on. The Leo was now without a dobergun, but it still had the shoulder-mounted shield with two beam sabers. 

That, Umar-Safia decided, would have to be enough. 

***

_Just a little more on the arm…_

With his teeth, Walker tore a large strip of gray sealant tape from the spool. Sealant tape was a synthetic adhesive sealer that was similar to duct tape, except stronger. But you could still tear it with your teeth if you persisted. 

He wrapped the strip around a large tear on the arm of his space suit, so that it might be reasonably airtight. He had applied a similar process to most of the holes and rents in his space suit, and had replaced the missing right-glove with a spare that was conveniently left in the seat compartment.

After wrapping several layers of tape around the suit arm, he grabbed his cracked helmet (which he had taken off shortly after launch because it obstructed his vision), and began to wrap tape around it, as though he was mummifying it, then bit off the piece. Thankfully, the helmet was only cracked, and there were no missing Plexiglas pieces, so it would be possible to minimize the amount of escaping air. Walker didn't want his face to freeze again; it made it harder to yell at people.

Skeptically, he put on the helmet, just to realize he could barely see anything through all the spaces of sealant tape. He looked around the cockpit, trying to adjust his sight. _Well, there's only one way to test of this thing works…_He reached forward and pressed a small red button on the control surfaces that was surrounded with yellow and black stripes. 

The sound of air being sucked out of the cockpit, followed by complete silence, and the forward display monitors and viewscreens slid upwards and to the side, as the forward hatch lifted up. Breathing as normally as possible, Walker slowly stuck his head out of the cockpit and looked around. By what he could see, the chamber was no different from the last time he had seen it, except being slightly darker, either from lack of light or his own imagination. Since the Controller General was not on his sensor grid, Walker reasoned that it would take him a minimum of 20 minutes to reach him, wherever he was.

That would be enough for what he had in mind. He sat back in his cockpit and looked at one of the metal drums marked **Hg** on them that he had brought along. He reached into the cockpit compartment, looking for equipment that was standard on all Taurus SMS and MD. He opened the compartment and dug around a bit, till he produced several metallic black devices the shape general shape of card decks, but about twice the size. Using the remaining sealant tape, he attached one to each of the three barrels, then shoved them out of his cockpit. Floating with them, he pushed them towards the wall, and using the tape, attached them to the ceiling of the chamber. Normally, the barrels had so much mass that the tape would never hold, but the gravity in the area was extremely light, about one twelfth of Earth's, Walker guessed, and he just needed to secure them in place. 

It took him about five minutes, and once he finished with all three barrels, he sat in his cockpit calmly and closed the hatch. 

Now, it was just a matter of waiting. 

He didn't have to wait long, fortunately. A few minutes later, from the general darkness of the chamber, between the two wrecked Leo's, a violet mobile suit emerged, unequipped except for its vernier-booster pack and its shoulder-mounted shield. 

Walker stared forward intently at the mobile suit, with a sort of grim determination, trying to inspect any damage there might be with his zoom lenses. 

The channel opened. "Lieutenant Walker, I assume?" the pilot said, with the same, well-cultured, experienced voice.

Walker grinned and took off his helmet, then responded. "Yes. And I assume that you are still Corporal Umar-Safia?" he asked. 

"That's right." The Leo shifted on its feet. "You know, I must admit, I was starting to regret allowing that tall woman, your second-in-command, to rescue you. But then I heard you were out of action. I didn't expect you back so early."

"Neither did OZ."

In his cockpit, Umar-Safia leaned back and smiled. "Well, you said something about a proposition for me. So start proposing."

***

"So, you two are finally here?" Mazuri asked.

Kanna Kirishima and Dack Bishop jogged into the hangar control station, to see Mazuri sitting at a console, staring at a monitor.

"Where the hell have you been?" she barked.

"Finding the Lieutenant," he snapped back. "And be thankful, if it wasn't for me paging Dack, you would have never found him. Not that it makes any difference at this rate."

Kanna shot Dack a glare, and he immediately shrank back, as she ran up to the monitor. "What do you mean, it won't any difference?"

"Walker's not even in this Colony any more." Mazuri leaned back in the console chair. "Don't worry, he's still at the Lagrange point." Mazuri tapped a key underneath one of the monitors, and the screen changed. "Also, I think there's something…" He paused, half for dramatic effect, half so he could reach the bottle of beer he had resting on the console. He took a deep gulp, then set it down. "You should probably know?"

Going akimbo, Kanna stared at him. "Which his?" 

"Well…this may seem kind of awkward, but the only way Lieutenant Walker was able to get in was with the help of one of the locals." He tapped the key again, and the monitor displayed a recording. Kanna stared at it, confused. A young Caucasian girl with pink hair passed the security camera, then looked at it curiously, then marched on. Behind her was Walker. 

"As strange as this might sound," added Mazuri, finishing his beer. "Me and a few guys at security think she's some sort of hacker. Still, that wouldn't explain why one of the guards inside the hangar hasn't responded for over an hour."

Kanna slammed her fist against the console deck, knocking down a beer bottle and causing Mazuri to jump back. "Well why the hell haven't you gone in and checked on him?" she demanded.

"The hangar doors have been locked from the inside through emergency procedure," Mazuri explained. "It's the normal drill whenever there's an air-leak in the Colony, all right? We haven't been able to find a manual override, and there's nothing we can do!"

To Mazuri's side, the door opened and a green clad OZ infantryman stepped in. "Ma'am!" he said quickly, saluting Kanna.

Kanna returned the salute hurriedly, and he continued. 

"We've just got a report from the Mobile Dolls around the interdicted Colony! There's definitely activity going on there. Director Sedici says he can get a mobile doll team scrambled and into action in two minutes. Do you wish to confirm a launch?"

"They're asking her?" asked Dack bewilderedly.

"Who's Sedici?" demanded Kanna.

Mazuri looked up from his chair. "One of our best MD scientists, from L3. Brilliant man, he's been upgrading the Taurus AI for a while now." He lowered his tone of voice. "Remember, there's a reason that the dolls aren't used for rescue missions. If they find Walker in a damaged Taurus,_ your _Taurus, they might identify him as an enemy. Mistakes have happened, after all," he warned her, narrowing his eyes.

"My suit?" she asked, and swallowed. He had assumed Walker had just stolen some spare. Now…if it was registered as her Taurus…the dolls would identify him as a thief. Stealing a mobile doll was punishable by death in OZ.

The obvious fact was to reprogram it. But Sedici…maybe she was just being paranoid, but she didn't want to trust him. 

Not now, anyway.

And she didn't trust those mobile dolls, either. 

"Ma'am, your orders?" repeated the Infantry messenger, leaning through the doorway, as Kanna rubbed her temples, remembering how much she hated this command. 

==============================

**Author's Note**: Okay, I realize this chapter left something to be desired, considering how long it took me…Verzeihung! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Don't worry, next chapter _will be started with the battle, as soon as my brother and I figure out the details. _

Also, if you can recognize the origins of the cigar scene…Kudos!


	12. The Politics

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 12_**

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gundam Wing or Sakura Wars, which are property of Bandai and ADV Films/Sega respectively._**__**

"Your terms are very straightforward for a _Special_," commented Corporal Muhammad Miriam Umar-Safia over the channel. "I appreciate that."

Walker sat in his cockpit, listening, as the Alliance Leo and the OZ Taurus faced each other off. 

"Still, they aren't very fair…"

In his cockpit, dressed in his crudely-repaired normal suit, Lieutenant Walker began to laugh. "Corporal…"

"Yes, I know, who am I to lecture you on fairness? 'The Himmler of the Lagrange Point One', they call me," the voice replied in earnest. "Do you believe that?"

Walker smiled, and responded. "Well, it came with your job title. Oppressing the Colonies, and all that. Not that I blame you…"

"I suppose so."

There was a silence, both pilots taking a moment to realize they had more in common with each other than anyone else. 

"I'm afraid I can't accept your terms, Lieutenant," muttered Umar-Safia over the channel. "I'm not cut out to be a prisoner paraded around the Colonies. If I was lucky, the Colonists would lynch me, but personally, I don't think they have the balls."

The other nodded, understanding. "I hear you."

"So, there's only one more way to resolve this." Umar-Safia didn't wait for Walker's response this time. Firing up his verniers, the right hand of the Space-Leo reached into the shield and withdrew a beam saber. Soon, the chamber was lit with a mellow red light from its deadly beam, and the Leo charged towards him. 

"After all," yelled Umar-Safia. "We're both _professional soldiers!_"

In his cockpit, Walker blinked his swollen, bloodshot eyes, and looked at the forward monitor, with large dark-gray bags hanging underneath them. He remembered that he was almost completely blind, a considerable disadvantage in mobile suit combat. As quickly as he could, he pulled out a simple thumb-trigger, the universal manual detonator, with a detonation pin inserted in it. Holding it lengthwise directly in front of his face, he pressed down on the button.  

Directly in front of the Taurus, several small flashing lights appeared, followed immediately by blossoming explosions of silver. Thousands of tiny mercury bubbles spread in all directions, though primarily away from the Taurus, causing a strange paradox with the reflection of the light that would have been both beautiful and confusing to Walker, had he been able to see it. 

Besides distorting sight, the thousands of little mercury globs began to freeze solid in contact with the near absolute zero temperature, and being metal, began jamming up the broadband sensors on both mobile suits. An alarm in Walker's cockpit went off announcing the strange occurrence, and he realized this was going to be his only opportunity.

Quickly, just as he could faintly see the Leo passing through the floating bearings of mercury, the Taurus used its arms to remove the beam cannon from its back and aim it at where he thought Umar-Safia would be: right in front of him. The HUD on his forward display was immediately dominated by a crosshair in the center of a wide circle, displaying the blast-range and width of the beam cannon fire on primary mode. Immediately he pulled the trigger on his right flightstick, praying that Kanna hadn't learned how to change the Taurus' default control layout. 

Outside, the muzzle of the beam cannon began to glow, as charged particles visible gathered at the tip. Within a few painfully long seconds, a bright yellow beam appeared, blazing down the chamber. The beam grew progressively wider and went farther, until it ripped through the sidewall of the Colony, streaking several kilometers into Outer Space before finally dissipating. 

***

Inside the monitoring station, the green clad _Tokusoldat pressed a finger to his ear slightly, and nodded, then looked back up at his superiors. _

"Ma'am! Recon scouts have just reported a long, high-energy beam breaking from the side of the Colony. To our best knowledge, Corporal Umar-Safia doesn't have any sort of beam weapons. Do you wish to deploy the mobile dolls?"

Warrant Officer Kanna Kirishima stood at the console, her right hand down against it, as though holding herself up, taking short, repeated breaths. Her head was hung down, and her face hidden by her red hair.

"Warrant Officer!" repeated the Infantryman, politely but with a mounting sense of urgency. "Do you wish to deploy?"

After a moment, in a very small voice, she spoke. "Iyey."

The Infantryman blinked his eyes. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Negative. Do not deploy. Save the mobile dolls." She looked up. "Lieutenant Walker has gone out on a personal assignment, and will receive no support, as following regulations."

Saluting, the _Tokusoldat raised his arm. "Ma'am!" And then disappeared through the door._

Corporal Mazuri looked up at Kirishima from his seat at the console. "You made the right decision."

Her eyes, as well as her entire face, were completely devoid of expression. "I hope so. He took my Taurus…my beam rifle was destroyed, so that means he has no weapons."

Mazuri blinked. He hadn't know that. "Well…in that case…" he mumbled in a more general tone, turning back to the console and throwing up his hands. "He's screwed. The Controller General's going to make space dust out of him."

Kanna didn't respond, but she looked more desperate than before. Bishop shot Mazuri a glance with his blue-green eyes that clearly bore a message _Why did you do that? To a woman no less!_

Mazuri quickly understood the glance and scowled back at him, with a visual message of his own. _Have you seen the size of this 'woman'?_

Finally, Kanna spoke. "All right," she mumbled. "There's nothing we can do besides wait." She sat down in an empty chair at another console. 

There was about two minutes of unpleasant silence, until Kanna spoke up again. "Mazuri."

"Yes?"

She turned her sharp eyes towards him. "How did you know so much about the Lieutenant's health problem?" she demanded in a very suspicious tone of voice. "How did you?"

Mazuri leaned out of his seat. "Excuse me?"

"How the hell did you know so much about the Boss's injuries?" she restated. "I mean, honestly, who the _hell ever heard of a 'kidney cap'? What's the deal?" She stood up and walked over to him, pulling back her right uniform sleeve to reveal her very thick, muscular brown arm. _

_Oh shit, she's finally snapped, Mazuri immediately thought, leaning away from her. __Emotionally-unstable. Figures, with her being a woman.  "I'd…I'd rather not talk about it…"_

"Who said about you having a choice?"

Mazuri gulped nervously.

***

Once the light from the beam cannon fire dimmed, Walker blinked his swollen eyes once more. Disorientated, he looked around at the cockpit's multiple screens. _…did I get him? Shit, where is he?_

As he looked around, the Taurus was struck from behind by a mechanical arm. The violet Leo reappeared behind him, with the Taurus in a stranglehold. The titanium frame of both mobile suits creaked loudly, as Walker turned around and unintentionally looked behind him in the cockpit, only to see the his seat.

"You really are crazy!" yelled Walker as some of the green diagnostic lights turned red. "I thought you were just desperate, but you're insane as well!"

In his cockpit, Umar-Safia leaned forward on both his flightsticks. "Yes, well, insane and desperate is a good combination when you need to be thought of as the equivalent of Heidrich Himmler!"

Inside the cockpit of the Taurus, Walker was rapidly pressing his finger against the control surfaces, using Kanna's spare glove as an identification chip. "All right, Umar-Safa, you're starting to freak me out here," he announced over the channel. All across the cockpit, there were small squares of paper stuck with scotch-tape to the surfaces, labeled in hand-written Japanese. He couldn't read any of them, unfortunately, and he wondered why Kanna would go around labeling so many things when she knew the Taurus' controls very well already. Finally, he gave up and leaned forward on both his flightsticks.

The OZ-12SMS Taurus, by the nature of its design, is a very physically strong mobile suit, with the physical exertion on par with the Gundams of Operation _Meteor_. Walker easily broke free of the Leo's grip, knocking him backward with sparks of electricity crawling all over the older suit's arms. The Space Leo fell backwards and slammed against the chamber wall, still holding its beam saber. 

Still holding his beam cannon in his right hand, Walker spun around. It would take nearly a minute for the beam rifle to reach full-charge again, so there was no real point in looking forward to that. At this rate, he reasoned, he would probably be dead in under a minute. At least the beam cannon was big: he could probably use it as a blunt, bashing-object. 

The Leo struggled to its feet, still holding the beam saber, and charged again. Walker maneuvered to his side and the beam saber went over his shoulder, but he didn't avoid being punched by the Leos fist in his mobile suit's chest. In his cockpit, Walker fell back against his seat. There was a twinge of pain from the injury on his side, and he winced. "Nice to see you haven't lost your touch, Heidrich," he mumbled, rapidly adjust control systems. _But I'm not going to loose again…_

Stepping forward towards the Leo, the Taurus swung its forearms and smashed its red 'razor-guards' against the Leo's chassis, knocking it backward. Walker swung around from the other side, striking him hard again, and knocking off the shoulder-joint armor, then finished the attack with his beam cannon, bringing it down on the Leo's head.

In his cockpit, Umar-Safia lurched backwards and to the side, striking a hard, jutting surface in the back of the cockpit. He blinked and turned his head forward, as the Alliance ace let go of his left flighstick and felt the side of his head. _I suppose I should have worn a helmet…_He smiled, amused at the sticky red blood on his gloved fingers. "You've definitely gotten better yourself, Walker."

He let out a long, barking laugh that set the hair on Walker's back on edge, as his forward monitor flicked with static. "Now, here's where the fun starts."

***

As an angry Kanna approached him step by step, popping her knuckles, Mazuri shifted in his chair, swallowing nervously. He had made a promise to himself that he would take this secret to his grave…it seemed as though it would be true at this point. 

"Listen, Kanna, please I…" he began to plead. 

Kanna seemed to stop, but with lightning speed, she swung up to him, so that she was perpendicular to his chair's back, and lifted him quickly by the throat. Now panicking, Mazuri desperately kicked his legs about in the air, knocking back the chair.

Dack stepped up from his own chair, but immediately sat back down as Kanna gave him a half-second long stare. She turned back to Mazuri. "Explain," she ordered darkly.

"All right," he gasped. "All right! Let…me go!"

She obeyed. Mazuri fell to the ground, bouncing like a football, and immediately assumed the fetal position until his breath returned, then slowly stood up. He rubbed his throat tiredly and looked up at Kanna, who seemed to tower over him more so than usual.

"Explain," she repeated.

He nodded, still rubbing his neck. "Of course. The reason I'm in OZ, in fact, the whole reason I joined the Alliance Military, was to get away from my family in Nairobi. We lived in the suburbs. God, I would do anything to get out of there. And I did. I spent my middle-school years in medical training, then dropped out as soon as I finished my Upperclassman year, when I was sixteen, ahead of schedule. Hell, I spent a short time as a freelance practitioner." He lay against the console. "I signed up for a two-year term in the Alliance. At first, they were going to make me a field-medic, but later it turned out I had the stuff to pilot a Leo." He smiled faintly. "So, I stayed in Kenya as a member of the garrison, but I never became a full-time doctor." 

Bishop blinked. "That's _it_? That's your big secret?" He crossed his arms. "Jesus, that was stupid." He shook his head. "So you were afraid of becoming a doctor, what's the big deal?"

"Well," began Mazuri. "It meant a lot to me at the time…"

"Oh, please…"

***

The Leo leapt to its feet, then positioned itself so that its right arm was back and the left arm was forward, and the shoulder shield was facing the opposing Taurus. There was a puff of gas, and a beam saber shot up from the shield, floated in space for a short time, and was snatched immediately by the Leo's left hand.

"I'm not holding back this time, Walker," jeered Umar-Safia. "If you kill me, I really do deserve to die…"

He fired up his verniers once more, but this time, swung himself around and spinning, the Leo's feet hitting the ground only a few meters in front of Walker's Taurus, which was frantically stepping backwards. It drove its twin red sabers down at him, barely missing, as Walker swung his Taurus from side to side, letting the beam sabers making gashes in the chamber walls and floors. _If I don't think of something…_he thought_…I'm going to be like that mark in the wall_. He tried to strike the Leo again with the beam cannon, though Umar-Safia was waiting for him. He raised his right beam saber and, as Walker brought down the beam rifle, jammed the saber's glowing end into the Taurus's arm-shoulder joint. The two mobile suits hung motionless on each other. Inside his cockpit, Walker saw another diagnostic light turn red as sparks played from his right flightstick.

"You should have aimed for my cockpit," he muttered over the channel.

"Yes, well, you're very fortunate I wasn't able to."

Before Umar-Safia could make the killing blow with his other saber, the Taurus grabbed the Leo's head-module and shoved it away, as the inserted beam saber was dragged through the shoulder once more. With the other arm, which was still working for the most part, he smashed the Taurus forearm across the Leo's right hand, almost knocking out the beam saber. Immediately, he countered with another blow to the Leo's central torso, using the extra-power Kanna had modified her Taurus to provide.

_If I can get close enough, _thought Walker. _I can probably rip off an arm. _Still, the two beam sabers promised to shred anything that got close enough. The only way to avoid them was to make a grab for the exposed shoulder-ball joint, then tear it apart as quickly as possible. 

The Controller General drove his left beam saber towards Walker again, coming so close he melted some of the waist-armor plating. Again, Walker was forced to step backwards rather then advance and be killed. Umar-Safia continued on the offensive stance until the Taurus found its back against a wall again. 

"Would you mind if I surrendered?" he mused over the channel.

"No. But I'm not saying I would listen." The right beam saber came down again, but the Taurus was just able to grab the Leo's arm with his left hand. The previous attack on it had weakened the arm considerably, but Walker still had enough reserve power to use it once more. 

Inside his cockpit, Walker rapidly tapped on the control surfaces, shifting energy routing towards the left arm. Pulling back on the left flighstick, the left arm twisted and writhed while still holding tightly to the Leo's right arm. Walker screamed something inaudible, and the entire right arm of the Leo tore off from the shoulder-joint onward.  

Still shielding his face with his raised left arm, Walker opened his eyes and stared through the forward monitor. The Leo clumsily tripped backwards, sparks pouring out of its right shoulder socket, almost losing its step. Blinking, he looked at his starboard monitor and smiled. In the Taurus' violet grip was the mangled, but mostly intact, violet right arm of the Leo. The beam saber remained lit for a few more seconds, before it drained its internal batteries and the red light flickered away. 

_Whatever Kanna's done to this suit, I'm glad she did it…_

Grinning broadly, Walker opened up the channel and leaned forward. "Now, can you do that left-handed?" 

Corporal Umar-Safia didn't answer, instead standing himself straight, and orientating itself towards the Taurus SMS.

"You know, Miriam," commented Walker. "You're a first-rate pilot and all of that, but you just can't stay in the way of superior technology." He leaned back in his impact seat. "You're the hardest Alliance Partisan I've had to face so far, but you're just delaying the inevitable." There was a high-pitched beeping to Walker's left, and he looked at the HUD. He smiled; The beam cannon had finally recharged. "Now, it's time to finish this ridiculous melee." 

He began to line up the crosshairs in the center of the wide circle on his HUD with the violet Space-Leo. Inside that Leo, Umar-Safia clenched the side of his head, as blood came out large globs from his head wound, and smearing all over his control surfaces. The Corporal looked as globs of his blood formed small spheres and floated through the cockpit, one of them striking the small photograph he had set there and covering it with a red stain the size of a coin.

_So…this is what it's like to die in Space, is it? _

Umar-Safia rested his head against his hand, as the warning tone in his cockpit announced he was being targeted by the Taurus opposite of him. He sighed deeply, as if trying to avoid these last breaths of air, then looked up. _I still have some vernier fuel left_, he thought quietly_. I'd hate to disappoint this OZ soldier._

As energy began to gather at the muzzle of the large beam rifle, the Leo shifted and flew towards him again, its legs dragged along the ground. The Taurus remained perfectly still, as yellow-white surge of energy poured of out of its weapon, the Leo just a few meters ahead. Walker stared at the yellow monoeye, his finger held on the trigger, when, from below, a red saber blade rose.

Walker didn't even think about the beam saber this time.

There was a flash of light, and another several-kilometer-long beam of a beam cannon broke through the Colony wall and dissipated into Outer Space. 

***

All eyes were on the display monitor, as a yellow light ripped through the side of a Colony wall, followed by a short explosion and fireball. The image, relayed with a two-second delay from the monitoring satellite that orbited the Colony, flickered in static. 

Kanna, Mazuri, and Dack all stared with their eyes locked on the flickering image, as the line of light that extended from the fireball to off the camera slowly faded away. None of them spoke for some time.

Then Mazuri broke the silence. "That's the second beam fired in about a minute. There's something definitely going on in there."

"_What_ the _hell_ was _that_?"demanded Kanna, staring at the screen. "I want to know what the hell that was!"

The door to the room opened once more, and another green-clad infantry soldier appeared. All three occupants turned their attention to what they expected to be the same infantryman they had seen earlier, and the person at the door did look like him, at first. However, after close observation, this person was slightly shorter, had slightly longer hair, and a thinner, more curved body.

"The similarity is uncanny," commented Mazuri.

"Ma'am!" saluted the Infantrywoman to Kanna, ignoring Mazuri's comment. "The monitoring station has reported that the shots were definitely from a high-powered beam cannon. Also, you may be interested to know that we've managed to insert a fire team into sealed hangar."

"Well, that's good," commented Dack dubiously. 

"How large is this fire team, by the way?" asked Kanna.

The infantrywoman paused. "We could only fit one soldier through the air ducts, at the moment, I'm afraid."

"One soldier hardly counts as a fire team," commented Mazuri dryly. "You should probably have him check out that little local girl running around with the Lieutenant. God knows what she's doing there, but we can get her arrested anyway."

***

"What the heck's taking him so long?" she wailed loudly, sitting on the catwalk.

With her legs crossed, Maria Rosetto sat unhappily on the overpass in the center of the hangar, as she stuck out her tongue at no one in particular. Lieutenant Walker had been gone for almost an hour, and she was starting to worry. Granted, Walker had warned her that it was about a forty-minute trip by mobile suit to the Colony, assuming you rushed yourself.

"Well, he could at least call!" Her lip twisted. "I bet the British bastard skipped out on me…didn't he?" she yelled accusingly at the hangar ceiling. "DIDN'T HE?"

Maria blinked, then spotted a small folded scrap of paper lodge between the grating in the catwalk. "Hey, a peso." She bent over to reach for it, when there was a very short, very sharp, moderately loud percussion noise and she bolted upright. She turned behind her to see a small hole more then a centimeter in diameter on the guardrail behind where her head had been.

_Uh oh_. Maria wasn't a genius, or a professional soldier, for that matter, but she was smart enough to reason that whatever made that hole was a bullet. She immediately turned in the direction of the bullet's origin, swinging her fist. "TU CAZZO!" she cried in her native tongue at the firer. Immediately after, she ducked and rolled around and onto the catwalk, as another bullet struck the guardrail. 

From the other end of the hangar, the sniper, the infantryman who had, earlier, informed Warrant Officer Kirishima of the situtation, and then had crawled through the airshafts to be able to enter the hangar, lowered his rifle, taking his eyes away from the scope. Using the bolt-action, he loaded another bullet into the chamber, and watched the little Caucasian girl with pink hair run down the catwalk towards the ladder. Thinking about it, he realized it might have been wrong to aim for her head like that: she was, after all, just a child, and he probably could have at least taken an extremity shot first. Then again, every door within a hundred meters of the hangar had a sign clearly marked 'OZ Personnel Only: Violators will be shot', in several languages, so technically it was the right choice to make.

He stood up, aimed with the rifle again, this time as Maria rapidly clamored down the ladder, and pulled the trigger. A bullet ricocheted off the metal wall with a spark, causing her to emit a high-pitched squeal. She scrambled to the floor and ducked for cover behind a crate that had thankfully been left near the wall of the hangar.

"Don't shoot!" she screamed in English. "I surrender! I surrender!"

The infantryman frowned, slung his rifle over his shoulder by the strap, and pulled out his baton, not saying a word. Granted, he would not shoot, but there was nothing wrong with beating her up a bit. Kids these days needed discipline, to say the least. 

***

When the lights from the beam cannon dimmed, Walker opened his eyes and cried out in horror, pressing himself against his absorption seat. Directly in front of him, huge and massive and obscuring all three of his display monitors, was the violet Leo. 

_I missed! Unbelievable!_

The Leo had once again made physical contact with the Taurus, the right side of its torso blackened and melted almost to the center. The beam cannon hadn't completely missed, but had merely grazed the suit's structure. 

Inside his cockpit, Umar-Safia was laughing uncontrollably. "And you did all that, for nothing! You see, this is what happens when you depend on equipment!" Slowly, with exaggerated caution, he leaned forward on his left flighstick. 

Inside his cockpit, Walker was cursing himself when he noticed a bright red light on his forward display. It didn't take long for him to realize that the Leo was slowly jamming its beam saber into the Taurus' monoeye. Soon, the bright red image was replaced by static, and red lights were going off in his cockpit, accompanied by high-pitch alarm sounds, which sounded broken through the thin atmosphere in the cockpit. 

_This is bad! This is very bad! _No he was unarmed _and _blind. Walker looked around the Taurus' flashing red control surfaces, scanning the small paper notes Kanna had stuck against them for anything, anything that might look helpful, like a note reading 'press this in the event of certain death'. When he thought of this, it occurred to Walker that his knowledge of Japanese was limited to the point where he probably couldn't read those words had he seen them, so, instead, he simply chose the first thing he saw out of the corner of his eye: a small paper note taped onto the right flightstick, with large Japanese _kanji_ written relatively legibly in ink, underneath an arrow that pointed to the small red key on the side of the flighstick. 

It looked like 'caution' to him.

_Hell, it's worth a shot. _

He lightly pressed the key with his right thumb, as the grinding sound from the beam saber was getting louder. And at first, nothing seemed to happen. Then there was a whining sound audible between the tones of warning alarms, from the floor of the cockpit, and then the entire SMS shuddered violently.

From the outside, armor plating on the Taurus' waist popped off, and blue gas poured out the waist and feet. The Leo saw it briefly, and its pilot identified it as excess vernier fuel. 

Then, the excess vernier fuel lit, all four streams at once. 

The Taurus crashed into Leo, knocking the beam saber through the gaping hole in the head-section, then pushed it up. Jerkily, both mobile suits rocketed up a wide, open shaft in the chamber's ceiling, or rather its floor, spinning erratically. The Leo, which was now in the Taurus' arms and in a rough ride, smashed against the side of the shaft, as they descended down in low gravity. The other arm finally ripped off, when the shoulder shield became hooked on some protrusion, pulling the rest of the arm with it. The two mobile suits continued, leaving a trail of sparks behind them on one of the walls, their shared speed just reaching twelve hundred kilometers an hour (they would have gone faster, had it not been the friction). Walker, despite being in the better position, found himself being thrown around in his cockpit, striking his head against the system displays. As they flashed red and he painfully opened his eyes, he noticed it was the display for his two fuel cells. They were almost completely empty. 

Finally, both mobile suits exited the shaft, entering another, considerably larger chamber with several levels. Pulling back on his flightsticks, Walker managed to break free of the Controller General, slamming himself against a wall and coming to a stop. The Leo continued to plummet from considerable inertia, stopping once it impacted the chamber floor. Much to Walker's amazement, it did not explode, though its vernier-booster pack was almost completely destroyed, the right section of it melted away.

_I'm going to finish this, god damn it_, Walker thought, struggling to get his Taurus to its feet.

Inside his Leo cockpit, Umar-Safia lay perfectly still. Then he opened his eyes and tried to orientate himself, as the right side of his head was coated with blood, and the left arm of his normal suit was bent in an unnatural fashion against his back, along with his left arm inside it. He blinked a few times, then looked at the control surface. 

_Mechanics, out. _

_Drive systems, shot._

_Internal reactor leak, critical._

_Monoeye camera, damaged._

_Sensor suite, damaged._

_Left and right arms, missing._

_Left and right shoulder points, missing._

_Beam saber, missing._

_I'm just a dead carcass floating in space_, he thought. He forced himself to smile. _Looks like I underestimated Walker. For a guy who should be in the ward, he fights pretty good. _He looked through the flickering forward monitor. Before it was permanently consumed by static, he watched as the black Taurus, shaken and with a large hole in its head, rose to its feet. _Not great, but pretty good. The only reason he won was because of that next generation mobile suit. Lucky OZ bastard. _

Inside his own cockpit, Walker held his breath, flipped his helmet over his head and locked it in place, then reached between his legs. As he expected, he found the yellow and black emergency lever, grabbed it, and pulled it to the first notch, being careful not to pull it all the way. With a rush of air, the Taurus' cockpit hatch, the armor covering it, as well as the forward display monitor (which was useless at this point anyway), blew free and floated away. Once he was sure that the normal suit was maintaining a decent atmosphere, he exhaled and resumed breathing, then grinned. 

_The Kirishima Maneuver. I actually pulled it off. _He didn't think he was that good. Maybe he was mistaken. Through the open cockpit hatch, he looked at the wreck of a Leo, fifty meters away. _Well, I haven't pulled it off yet…one last thing to do. _

In his right hand he still held the beam cannon, though the internal mechanism had been breached on his little joyride down the shaft with the Controller General, and mercury was leaking. _Well, I'll just do it Kirishima's way. _

Slowly at first, the Taurus began to manually move over to the Leo. Soon it was in a full run. About a dozen meters from Umar-Safia, he leapt and slammed into him, knocking him further into the wall. He opened the channel once last time.

"HOPE I SEE IN YOU HELL, HIMMLER!" He lifted his right arm back and using the full force of the Taurus' hydraulic pistons, drove the beam cannon tip deep into the center of the cockpit. _Once. _

The Leo's armored torso buckled inwards, and Umar-Safia's small photograph floated free of the bent control surfaces and into his hand, where he caught it in his gloved hands. _Miriam…_

Walker pulled back his right arm, then drove it again. The cockpit hatch was crushed inwards, a small spray of reddish substance coming from behind it. _Twice, almost there. _

He retracted the beam cannon a last time, then drove it in again. Now, it passed all the way through, past the internal fusion reactor, and into the booster pack. With considerably force, condensed vernier fuel, a thick, blackish-blue substance, spewed out of the Leo's 'wound', clearly spraying itself across the Taurus' cockpit and what remained of the monoeye. It froze, hardened, and then shattered as the Taurus moved again.

Covered with vernier fuel that was still liquid from the heat coming from his normal suit, Walker wiped his helmet and looked down. What he had done began to occur to him, if somewhat late. He unbuckled the restraints and let himself float over to where the beam cannon met the Leo's chassis. With a grunt, he pushed aside a scrap of titanium and looked into the large, dark gap in the center of the wreck. Looking, he couldn't see the body of the pilot, so he turned around and prepared to float himself back to his Taurus. However, when he turned around, his boot was caught on the torso-bar at the base of the central chassis, and in the middle of floating titanium fragments was a bright red streak. He stepped up to it and saw that it was a human hand, frozen in its glove, severed from the mid-forearm, with a torn part of a normal suit still on it. Apart from the bloody stump, the hand had frozen so white that it resembled a plastic mold. 

Unscrupulously, Walker grabbed the hand and inspected it, when he noticed a small, charged fragment in its still-tight grip. He jerked it out, wiped some more fuel from his helmet, and looked at it.

It was a photograph of a woman, an Arabic one, judging by her appearance. She was twenty-one or so, and quite attractive. The rest of the picture was completely burnt and Walker could make out no more of it, but he understood. 

He crumpled up the photograph into dust and tossed the hand away into space, then grabbed the side of the massive beam cannon, so he could float himself away. However, he paused for a moment, and with his back to the mobile suit wreck, he saluted sternly with his free hand. 

_Tell your girlfriend I said 'hello', Umar-Safia. _

***

When Lieutenant Walker finally did call in to the monitoring station, Kanna slammed her hand against the console to open the channel.

"SIR!" she screamed. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?"

Pause. "Calm down, Kanna, I'm all right." Another pause, with a reluctant follow-up. "He's dead."

"Who's dead, sir?" asked Bishop, leaning forward beneath Kanna's arm, towards the speaker.

"The Controller General. He's dead. KIA." 

Mazuri and Bishop exchanged skeptically looks, and the Kenyan shrugged, then spoke. "Sir, it wasn't necessary for you to do this."

"Actually, it was. I had a deal with someone."

Mazuri began drumming his fingers against the console. "Did this someone happen to be a young Colonial girl of Italian-descent?" he asked. 

"How long did it take you to capture her?"

"Not long. We didn't beat her up much, either, just a few whacks with a tackling club. Nothing painful, really." He looked at another monitor. "When we looked up her monitor, it turned out we had no reason to apprehend her in the first place. Turns out she was very recently accepted into OZ. No other data on that."

"I already know, and I'll explain later."

Kanna leaned in front of Mazuri, with a mounting sense of urgency in her voice. "Sir, actually, speaking of that, Colonel Une has already requested you get back here."

Bishop blinked. _No she didn't. _

"Well, Warrant Officer Kirishima," came Walker's tone dryly. "There's a lot ways to interpret the word 'back' in English. Am I right, guys?"

Rolling his eyes so they were in the back of his head, Mazuri leaned back. "Sure sir. Like 'back to back' or 'back to school'…"

"Or 'Baby got Back'," added Dack helpfully. 

Kanna sighed. "Sir, please?"

There was a hallow chuckle at the other end. "All right, Kanna. I'm afraid I'm going to have to begin radio silence though, since my mobile suit's so badly fucked up."

"_Your _mobile suit?" echoed Kanna.

"Yes, yes, I know, and I'll apologize later. In fact, come to think of it, I'll do everything…fill out he paperwork, submit the report, et cetera. Hell, I'll even bring back your Taurus. Walker out."

"SIR!" yelled Kanna, before she sighed again. _Another chapter in the story of my life. _She remained standing, but hung her head down. "…"

There was an eerie pause that made Bishop feel uncomfortable, so he turned to his comrade. "Hey, Mazuri…I have a question…why were you so afraid about being a doctor anyway? You never explained that."

Mazuri blinked, as though he hadn't been expecting the question, but quickly recovered. "Well…it wasn't as much as I was afraid, as I was embarrassed, to be honest."

"Really?" muttered Kanna. "What did you do?"

"Yea, what field were you in?"

"Uh…well…" Mazuri stood up from his chair and paced around the room, gathering his thoughts. "Hard to explain, to be honest. It was an examination for women only. I don't know the word in English, but uh…" He walked over to Kanna, demonstrating. "Basically, I did this." He got onto his knees, his face directly in front of the crotch of Kanna's white uniform pants. "Of course, normally, I'd have to crouch, since most women aren't as tall as Kanna, but…uh…"

Once again, there was an eerie pause. Kanna just looked down at Mazuri and said nothing.

Bishop's eyes grew to the size of saucers. "…you were a _gynecologist_?" 

"Ah, that's the word."

The end of Bishop's lip began to quiver as he broke into what was first a smile, but, step-by-step, became uncontrollable laughter. Kanna stood perfectly still, with Mazuri still in the same position at her feet, her face turning slightly red. "Uh…could you get your face out of my crotch, Mazuri?"

He nodded and immediately stood up, with his usual aloofness. 

"You'll understand if I don't ask you to give me an inspection, right?" she asked sarcastically. 

"Trust me, I'd rather not. _That _would just be awkward. Besides, I've seen enough ass for one life time." Mazuri grinned with his intellectual air and pushed himself away from the podium, glad that Kanna's seemingly volatile temperament had sedated itself. 

Kanna sat on the console, crouched over. In truth, she was actually somewhat relieved. On the bright side, Lieutenant Walker had defeated Corporal Umar-Safia, and thus, this whole fiasco would soon be over. The Colony Press, and the Colony Delegation for that matter, could think whatever they wanted to. She wasn't in politics, it wouldn't reflect on her. And she was tired of thirty-seven hour days. And since the possibility of Walker returning to the ward like he should of was nil, someone would be able to cram their ass back into a chair and start filling out papers. 

And this time, it wouldn't be her. 

***

"Colonel Une!"

Tycho Nichol, dressed in full uniform and regalia, saluted at the back of the highest-ranking OZ officer in Outer Space.

Two younger officers, both women younger then the Colonel herself, were at her side, braiding her hair. The whole thing made Nichol extremely uncomfortable. 

"Your report, Nichol."

He swallowed. Une's voice was two very different things: at one time, it was the sound of freedom and promise to the members of the Colony Delegation. But to the OZ officers who served under her command, it was the sound of higher authority from hell. He hated having to face up to her, particularly when she was in that dangerous transitional phase between Ambassador and Officer Une. At least he was just staring at her back.

"We received a transmission from the Fourth Mobile Suit Team, stationed on Colony D042071, at the first Lagrange Point, confirming the neutralization of Alliance Corporal Umar-Safia. They've requested the use of a Recovery Shuttlecraft to retrieve Lieutenant Walker."

Une's back seemed to frown at Nichol. "The Lieutenant should have sufficient command to authorize use of a shuttle on his own."

"Uh…yes, Colonel, but it was not Lieutenant Walker's request." He produced a folder of papers and flipped through them. "The request was made by Warrant Officer Kirishima, Walker's second-in-command." 

_Walker is certainly not concerned with his own well-being. _"Permission granted. Oh, and Nichol, don't bother me with such petty details again, clear?"

He swallowed more deeply the second time. "Of course, Colonel. I apologize."

"Oh, and give me that report on Walker." She rigidly stuck out one of her hands. Nichol quickly handed her the paper folder, and she looked at it as she sat.

"Should I release a report to the press?"

She shook her head, causing one of the attendants to step back. "Not yet. I'll do it myself. You are dismissed, Captain."

He saluted, then spun around, anxious to get out of the room. _This espionage assignment is getting way out of hand…_

Une continued to stare at the reports on Walker, almost exactly like those she had seen at the Third Alliance Naval Hospital. _This man is going to cause us a lot of trouble…He's the last soldier in Earth Sphere that could be made a hero, and yet, here he is. Hell has finally frozen over. _She looked at his picture, on a clipping from _Time Magazine_, annoyed. _I thought I'd got rid of him, giving him to Gozart…_

***

By 'nightfall', if one could think of time in that sense, A. Mazuri and Dack Bishop had already left the monitoring station for the inn, probably interrupted by a few hours of heavy, excessive drinking and hitting on the opposite sex. Kanna Kirishima remained however, ever vigilant, finishing what she was determined to be the last item she would ever fill out. It wasn't even that long; just a request form for a Recovery Team for _her _Lieutenant who had totaled _her _recently repaired OZ-12SMS Taurus, which was supposed to be _her _responsibility.

She finished the report quite quickly, ending with her ink signature in neatly printed in fancy Japanese script, over the black line. In tired motions, she folded the papers, stuffed it into a large brown envelope, and made a mental note to deliver it tomorrow, when the Search and Rescue Teams decided to wake up, scratch their asses, have some coffee, and get back to work.

It had been three hundred hours, and she had decided that it wasn't worth the trouble of going back to the inn, particularly if the two idiots decided to barge in on her while she was sleeping, like men used to do very commonly in the _Before Colony _era, before the whole screaming epidemic…

Still, remaining in the monitoring station didn't really provide total rest. An hour or so after she had rested her head against the top of the counter, using her thick arms as pillows, it started beeping repeatedly. At first, Kanna was determined to ignore it, but the beeping didn't let up. Eventually, she felt around and grabbed the receiver from the console top. "Mooshi mooshi?" she mumbled.

"Kanna, it's me. Sorry to wake you."

Lieutenant Walker, again. She wasn't in the mood to beat around the bush this time. "What do you want, sir?"

"…well, seeing how I'm just floating out here in space, and at my current speed, will reach the nearest colony in about three months, I was wondering if I could ask you something."

_Great. He wants to talk. Wonderful. _She mouthed 'baka', and held the receiver to her ear, not lifting her head. "Go ahead, sir. Recovery craft won't be there till next morning. Bad hours." 

On his end, floating around in space in the open cockpit of his Taurus, Walker cocked his head, then spoke into his headset. "Who is Maji?" 

That woke her up. Kanna lifted her head slightly, almost dropping the receiver. "Excuse me, sir?"

"If you don't mind me asking, who is Maji. I heard you mention the name once in your sleep. I realize it's probably none of my business."

Kanna sighed. _I suppose it was bound to happen, sooner or later. _She had managed to dodge the subject of her deeper past throughout her entire OZ career, with the exception of one night in the Infantry where she had drank an entire keg of _Sapporo _beer and been dancing on a table, a long with a half dozen other Far East _Specials _Sergeants and Corporals, to _Before Colony _music called 'iron maiden', loud enough to stun cattle. She had been a Sergeant back then, in command of a Close Combat Infantry squad, though she had almost lost her command that night as well. 

But here was Lieutenant Walker, oblivious to reality, yet not missing a single detail. Honest, yet complete vile. Alive, yet very much dead. And he had brought it up, without even getting her drunk. _He's either a very lucky dullard or a very observant stalker. _"Maji."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have asked."

She shook her head, despite the obvious fact that Walker wouldn't see it. "It's all right, sir. It was bound to be brought up, sooner or later." _And I suppose its easier then explaining it to your face. _"Maji…Maji was…" _Damn, this is difficult. _"Maji is actually a short version of Mohadmas Raji."

"Old friend of yours?" he asked.

"Sort of. We were engaged since I was a child."

Inside his cockpit, Walker titled his head, leaning it against his right hand. _That would explain the moaning… _

Kanna continued, words just coming out out of her, despite herself. "He was from Calcutta, a member of the Indian aristocracy…we called him 'Maji', because 'Mohadmas' was too difficult to pronounce when I was younger. My mother, the twenty-sixth heir, arranged the marriage. It was basically just to keep the Kirishima bloodline going. I didn't mind though, Maji was a great guy. Handsome, attractive, though pretty short, even by normal standards. And he was kind, very kind and empathetic. In fact, if I didn't join the Infantry, I probably would have married him and maybe even had a child by this time." She cocked her head to the side. 

"I see."

"Well, like they say, you're not supposed to look at what might have been as much as you should look at what is now."

Walker nodded. "You're not mistaken, Kirishima." He certainly spent too much time looking at the past, with Zechs, Otto, and Noin, at the Corsica Plant or at the Academy. He opened the channel again. "I'm sorry for asking this, Kirishima. I supposed curiosity got the best of me."

"I don't mind sir," her voice replied, in a sort of depressing tone. "Well…'Night, sir."

The channeled closed, and Walker nodded again. "Good night." He turned his body around a bit, so that he wouldn't be resting against his ulcer when he finally fell asleep. As a result, rest came fairly quick, which was important as he consumed less air this way.

Inside the damaged, open cockpit of the Taurus, Walker rested motionlessly, his arms crossed. Within his helmet, there was a small beeping sound, and he jolted awake, a few hours after he first fell asleep. He stared out into the vastness of space, at the absence of a cockpit hatch and a forward monitor, and was momentarily confused before he remembered what had happened. The beeping continued, and he identified it. 

_Looks like the atmosphere's finally starting to fail…it took long enough…_

It occurred to him that if the recovery craft Kanna had said she would summon hadn't even left the Colony, or just didn't make it to him before the atmosphere inside his normal suit failed, he was going to suffer a much less pleasant fate then at the hands of the former-Controller General. _Nice to know that after all this pointless fighting, I might just end up choking on my own exhalation and splitting my spine. _He kicked the foot pedals at the base of the cockpit and mumbled under his breath. 

_I know what I'll do…I'll make a checklist. Things I need to do once I get back to the base…that way, when Colonel Une decides to get on my ass for doing this in the first place, at least I'll know what to expect. _He racked his mind, thinking of previous assignments. _Well, there's the HLV blocks from Singapore…that's always at the top of the list, but same thing with most Lieutenants. I'll need to order a salvaging team to recover those other two Taurus as well, before I can do anything. New supplies, weaponry, normal suits…stuff like that can't be repaired. _He frowned. _I'll have to stuff that little Maria girl into a barrel and transport her out of this Lagrange Point. Sounds fun. Speaking of Colonists, I'll also need to address BBC again…great. Well, they'll probably want more then an interview this time…personally, I'd rather have one of Romefeller's Inspectors give me a beam saber enema…_

His thoughts were interrupted by a crackling sound in his headset. He hit the side of his helmet with his hand.

"…cczz…Lieutenant Walker…are you there? I repeat, First Lieutenant Christopher Walker…this is recovery team A-twenty six from the nearby Colony. We've identified your Taurus, please respond."

Walker smiled smugly and opened the channel on subspace frequency. "This is Lieutenant Walker. I read you. I'm glad you guys decided to show up so fast…ten more minutes or so, and you'd have even more paperwork to fill out." He sat up in his cockpit, keeping one arm around the restraints, and waved at the distant flashing recovery shuttle. 

"Affirmative, sir. Can you move?"

"Negative. I have the fuel, but I'm pretty sure maneuvers will throw me out of the cockpit."

"Acknowledged. We're going to reel you and your Taurus in with our tow cables. We'll do our best not to hit you."

"That's all I ask. Walker, out." 

From the underside of the dark blue shuttle, a pair of hatches opened, and cables fired out on small rockets. With pinpoint precision, they struck the Taurus' back, and slowly began to reel it in. Walker remained in his cockpit, resting his head on his hand. 

All in all, it hadn't been such a bad twenty hours. But still, in the back of his mind, he still felt sorry for the Controller General. 

***

Lieutenant Christopher Walker left Colony D042071 an injured, disgruntled OZ pilot. He returned to Colony D042071 an injured, disgruntled hero. 

But even heroes, as he learned, had to do work. Perhaps even more so then non-heroes. 

The recovery team delivered him back to the Colony under normal circumstances, then rushed him into another medical center, this one privately controlled by OZ. Walker appreciated this, as it allowed him to return to work rather than wasting his time, sleeping in the medical ward. 

"Give me a report on the salvage operation." 

Christopher Walker, surrounded by the three members of the 4th Interstellar Mobile Suit Team, and with a medical attendant at each one of his arms, barked out orders in the treatment room of the center. "All right, people, vacation's over," he announced, specifically towards Mazuri and Bishop who had been unusual quiet till this point around Walker. "Mazuri, you're going to search the database, see if there are any _other _Alliance aces that we left unaccounted for. Bishop, you're going to file the request for the salvage operation. Kirishima or I will sign the warrant once you get it."

"But I…"

"Bishop, SHUT UP." He turned to Kirishima. "Kirishima, you are to turn over all processing work to me and step down from your position as acting commander of the Fourth Interstellar, effective immediately."

Mentally, Kanna congratulated herself and took a sigh of relief. "Hai!" She saluted firmly.

Walker nodded at her. "I don't know how much of the red tape I'll be able to fill out, though it's a nice alternative to beating Alliance Leo's into the ground with beam cannons. Sooner or later, 'Ambassador' Une is going to give us a ring and tell me to do something." He frowned. "At best, maybe it'll just be another press conference. At worse…God knows what kind of publicity stunt she might try to pull with this."

"Twenty pesos says she milks this thing for all its worth," commented Mazuri. 

"I'd take that bet, but why bet against a sure thing? Anyway, the last we can do is lay low until they transfer us the hell off this Colony." Walker flexed one of his arms, as they covered it with bandages, then released him. He pulled the sleeve over his arm so, that to the normal person, nothing appeared to be wrong with it. "Just because we only have one mobile suit, which is currently in repair, doesn't mean we're useless to the Colonel." His one exposed eye narrowed. "Pop quiz, kids. What does it mean?"

Mazuri was the first to speak up, looking away from Walker's medical reports. "It means that we're technically not a mobile suit team, but just the _Fourth Interstellar Mobile Suit_. Period?"

"Wrong."

Kanna spoke next. "It means that the rest of our assignments are going to be non-combative until we get new equipment."

Walker nodded. "A thousand points for Kanna. I'll try to get as much paperwork done before the first wave of reporters strangle me to death, as well as submitting a report to the Colony Delegation."

Walker paused, allowing the medical attendants to fix up his other arm. One of them applied a bandage to his ulcerous growth on his left side, then Walker closed and buttoned his uniform. 

"Sir, haven't you forgot something?" asked Mazuri, grinning slightly.

"Forgot something?" Walker cocked an eyebrow. He thought for a moment. "Well… suppose I should send a communiqué to Colonel Une but…"

Mazuri sighed. "The girl, sir."

"What girl?" he demanded.

"You know, sir…short…pink hair…Caucasian…Italian accent?"

Walker thought for a moment. The gears in his head slowly turned. "Honestly, I don't remember any…"

"Maria Rosetto, sir. Apparently a legitimate OZ officer."

They stopped turning. "Oh. Her."

***

"BASTARDS! LET ME OUT OF THIS CELL!"

In an OZ Temporary Containment Facility, originally a Laundromat prior to the Organization's arrival into Outer Space, was used to store the 'minor criminals', or smallest of the small-fries. It could very well be considered a minimum-security facility, but since inmates were rarely let out of their cells, it was an exception.

Two guards, with their usual green uniforms, escorting Lieutenant Walker and Warrant Officer Kirishima, paused at one of the small laundry-rooms that had been converted into a cell. This was practical in some sense: the room already had access to Colony's water system, which meant they could quickly install a toilet and a sink, as well as access to the Colony's electricity grid, which meant they could hardwire electrical equipment. 

The banging against the reinforced steel door got louder the closer they got. One of the guards grabbed his submachine gun and aimed it at the door, as a procedural precaution, while the other one entered the combination to open the cell. The lock made a loud, metallic sound, and the second guard opened the door manually by pulling. A young Caucasian girl with bright pink hair and a sleeveless-light blue collared shirt fell onto the floor.

"Oomph!" Maria Rosetto went.

"So, this is our latest recruit from the Colonies?" asked Kanna, towering over Maria. The girl looked up, swallowed nervously, and scrambled to her feet. 

"You're…you're her!" she cried out. "Her!"

"Her who?" Kanna asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Her! The Jap behemoth!" 

Kanna frowned and turned to Walker, who was standing slightly behind her. "I'm going to like her," she said, in the closest thing to an 'evil' tone of vioce. "I can tell already."

Maria stuck her head in again, blinking her large eyes, and pointed an accusing finger at Walker. "CAZZO! What the hell took you so long? _We had a deal!_"

"Deal, sir?" asked Kanna, cocking an eyebrow.

Walker sighed and explained the entire situation in brief, then finished with "…so that I would drop her off at the next Colony we got transferred to, in turn for her help."

Kanna turned to her. "Come on, kid," she muttered. "I mean, we _have _been clearing out the minefields so that people like _you _can travel independently between Colonies. Really, you could just buy a ticket on a shuttle-line."

"Or hack yourself one." Walker turned to Kanna. "She's one of those damn super-hackers."

"You're kidding."

"No, I'm not."

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP?"

Kanna and Walker both looked down at Maria, some distance below them, even at her full height. She shrank back, then coughed in her hands. "Anyway, where are those two other guys?"

"What two other guys?" asked Kanna, playing oblivious. 

"You know! The Black guy and the other White guy! Dackard and Ali!"

Walker rubbed his forehead. "She means Mazuri and Bishop." Both of them were working on their other assignments, not taking the luxury of visiting this annoying little girl under their custody, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Why should he? "They're not here at the moment."

"No shit, Brit," mumbled Maria.

"I heard that." Walker paused. "And don't call me 'Brit'. You're probably more British than I am. Not that I mind, but that's the truth." He crossed his arms. "As for our agreement, it's time for you to fill your end."

"Fine!" she snapped. She looked nervously at the two guards. 

With a wave of her arm, Kanna dismissed the two guards casually, who spun around and walked away, then put it against her waist, looking directly at Maria. "There. Now, how exactly can you get the press of our backs?"

Maria lowered her voice, obviously not thinking of the security cameras that were listening in anyway. "Each _BBC _Reporting Team is pretty much limited to their own studio and communications grid for each Colony. D042071 has _twenty-three_ currently. Communication traffic is off the scale. So is the strain on the power stations. However, this isn't going to stop all twenty-three teams from chasing down your Boss until they get a decent press interview, even if it means leaving the entire Colony and stalking you through Outer Space."

"Sounds like Hell," commented Kanna. 

"I've been to Hell…it's nowhere near that bad," pointed out Walker. 

"Whatever. The thing is, as a _damn superhacker_, I have the ability to reroute their transmissions through the grid. Huge overload." She made a gesture with her hands. "Communications jam. BOOM."

Walker just stared at her, then turned to Kanna. "Anyway, that was the plan. Of course, understand, I was bleeding a lot, so my brain had probably shut itself off."

"That so."

"LISTEN TO ME!" screamed Maria. They both turned back to her. "So, if you two don't mind, I'D LIKE TO GET THE HELL OFF THIS COLONY."

"Sir!"

Walker and Kanna turned to see another guard, saluting, with an envelope in his head. Maria shifted behind Kanna and looked at him. _How many of these guys are they? And why the hell do they all look exactly the same?_

"Private?" asked Walker.

"We've just got a report from Captain Nichol! It was to be forwarded to you as soon as possible." He stepped up to Walker and stuck out the item. Walker snatched it, tore open the seal, and began reading the documents inside. "You may go, Private."

The Private saluted once more, than disappeared as he had appeared. Walker read through the documents one by one, placing the ones he finished back into the envelope. 

"What's it say?" asked Kanna.

"The Registry just informed Command of Maria's forced entry into the Space Forces," he explained. He turned to Maria, pausing.

The Italian girl blinked her eyes. "AND?"

He inserted the final document back into the envelope, produced a small hydrogen lighter, and lit a corner of the brown envelope. It crinkled and burned with its colored flame, as Walker waved it in the air. "They've decided to clear it. You've been accepted into the OZ Space Forces for the standard enlistment term of two years. Congratulations, and welcome to OZ." With his free hand, he followed regulations and shook Maria's limp hand. Her eyes grew to the size of saucers before she reacted.

"GIMME THAT!" She yanked the burning envelope out of his hand, through it against the ground and stomped on the flame repeatedly. Then she grabbed it again, tore the envelope apart, searching through the ash and papers. Most of the papers were thoroughly burned, in Walker's attempt to destroy them and save himself the filing work. Frantically, she scrolled the lines with her eyes, then looked up at the two soldiers. "W-W-WHAT?"

Walker droned on endlessly. "Like I said, welcome to the OZ Peace Preservation of Outer Space. I am First Lieutenant Christopher Walker, of the Fourth Interstellar Mobile Suit Team, and your commanding officer. This is Warrant Officer Kanna Kirishima." He saluted, feeling ridiculous.

Kanna took a drastically different approach. "I've always wanted to do this," she told Walker before grabbing Maria by the neck and putting her in a headlock under her left underarm. Rosetta squealed, kicking her feet about, but the taller woman's grip was airtight. She kept trying to pull, as Kanna proceeded to use her bunched fist to rub back and forth against the small girl's pink hair. "Welcome aboard, kiddo!" she barked happily. 

"NO!" she screamed. "I'm not a soldier! I can't even march!" Under Kanna's arm, she looked up at Walker. "Wait! You can still drop me off at the next Colony and…"

While there was nothing he would rather do, he shook his head. "Negative. You're a member of OZ. Desert, and I'm supposed to arrest and shoot you."

"WHAT?" screamed Maria, her eyes as large as ever. "No! No! Please, god, no! I don't want to die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

As Kanna happily continued her rubbing, now chanting "_Yokuso Makai!_", which literally translated to 'Welcome to Hell'. Walker stared at what was probably defined as 'feminine bonding', then began rubbing his temples. The next few months seemed like they were going to be much longer now. He could tell…

***

Walker hated being right. And when it came to bad things, he was almost always right. 

Maria Rosetto was introduced as 'Petty Officer Rosetto', now officially part of the 4th Interstellar. This meant a lot of things, both immediately and in the long-term. The immediate affects including having to house a fourteen-year-old Colonial female in their two-person hotel room, which was arranged as thus following: Walker slept in an armchair, while Kanna threatened to beat Mazuri and Bishop senseless unless they gave her one of the beds, and as a result, got one of the beds. Bishop and Mazuri grudgingly shared a bed, which was not difficult, since neither of them were particularly large, and they edged to the ends of the bed, sleeping with Bishop's feet to Mazuri's head and vice versa. As for Maria, she originally planned to sleep in the other chair at the desk, but ended up sleeping with her back to Kanna, more irate than Bishop and Mazuri. As all four of them would complain to the other member of the same gender, Walker learned a very good lesson in psychology: there was a reason why two members of the same sex usually did not sleep together in most circumstances: it was too loud. It had very little, if anything, to do with sexuality, as Sigmund Freud would have argued. It was all about who hogged the bed sheets and pillows, or who rolled onto the other person's side of the bed, or who woke up with their head in someone's chest (Maria to Kanna, on the first night). 

Petty Officer Rosetto also got a uniform, or at least, part of one. Originally, it was the smallest available size of a standard black OZ uniform, though it was still not small enough by her standards (though everyone else thought it was suitable enough), and she shrank it with the help of a washing machine. Then she tore off the sleeves. _Then_ she discarded the khaki pants. In the end, she was dressed a lot as she was before, now with a black formfitting uniform top with the OZ insignia sewn onto it, to compliment her bare arms, sneakers, and miniskirt. 

In the end, Maria obvious liked it, since she spent a lot of time looking at herself in the mirror. 

Walker thought it was absurd. 

And Bishop, on a dare by Mazuri, slapped Maria across her latex-skirt posterior while she was in front of the mirror, and he never heard the end of it. Walker, that is. 

Thankfully, this was the last advance made by Dackard Bishop. The reason for this was another issue Walker dealt with in his normal, obtuse manner: Maria's position. There were numerous reasons that Maria was the last candidate in the known universe, perhaps ahead of the Sanc Kingdom Principal Relena Peacecraft, to be a mobile suit pilot. Among them, there was the fact that each Taurus team was limited to three mobile suits, due to the structural design of highly mobile Taurus Carriers. And then there was the fact that Maria knew absolutely nothing about mobile suits, and the fact that she made it clear she would rather have Sergeant Bishop slap her repeatedly across the ass for a majority of her new working day then actually risk her life in the name of some 'bunch of Napolean-wannabies with horrible fashion sense and guns that were so large they must be compensating for something'. When he heard this, he had a feeling that she didn't mean 'bad aim'. 

However, this event did give him a thought, which ultimately prevailed. He had no idea what to do with Maria, who seemed unwilling to do any useful work, like serving drinks or computer-hacking at the moment, and Bishop was overworked with the Carrier. And thus, Maria Rosetto became Bishop's assistant aboard the Taurus Carrier. 

That took the care of the actual paperwork. Of course, it wasn't like Maria Rosetto was actually going to _do _anything, much less serve OZ. Aboard the Taurus Carrier, she spent most of her time in front of her tiny computer screen, computing numbers on something or another, in what had been their last remaining spare sleeping bunk, not leaving except to periodically eat or use the toilet and shower. It wasn't entirely her fault: with the sort of menial labor assignments Bishop gave her, when he actually asked for her health, one could hardly blame her. 

"Maria…" he would mumble, as he did some light-duty maintenance on the Carrier. "I need you to get me that…you know…thing…"

She would look up from her computer, or, in time, thick illustrated novels called _Shoujo-Manga _provided by Kanna (who bought them in the local language in the Colonies), and stare down the shaft at his feet as he fumbled around in the maintenance pit, her legs crossed. "No, I don't know, Pervert, what thing?"

"You know…the metal thing…with the cross-shaped head?"

She frowned. "The screwdriver?" 

"Aye, that's it. Float it over here, would you, sweetheart?"

And then she'd shove the entire tool case down the maintenance shaft and into his face. 

"What'd I say? What'd I say?"

This was basically what Maria Rosetto did: being comparable to if the 4th Interstellar had acquired a cat or a hamster as a pet, but considerably less sociable. To Walker's relief, however, left to her own devices, Maria didn't seem to ever do anything invariably dangerous, unlike Mazuri and Bishop. And she was not completely furious with Walker either: they did leave the Colony D042071, and they did take her along. For all of OZ in general, the encounters with the Alliance Partisans were getting less and less every day, and Walker wondered what the 4th Interstellar would be ordered to do when the last Alliance Soldier died in Outer Space.

As a direct result of this, Walker acquired something new besides an adolescent Colonist and, eventually, three completely-overhauled OZ-12SMS _Taurus_: free time. Free time to sleep, free time to read, free time to exercise. Walker did a lot of the prior two at first, but eventually, under Kanna's suggestion, began exercising rigorously. Exercising in Zero-Gravity was a tricky task, Kanna's routine consisting of binding her chest to the floor or ceiling via several copper coils (taken from the maintenance pit), and forcing herself against the coils with her stomach muscles until her chest was perpendicular to the surface she was on. It was the space-equivalent of sit-ups. Walker himself did the same, and managed to gain some strength, though he only used two and later, three coils, rather then the twelve Kanna used. 

He was in the middle of doing these sit-ups when Mazuri slid into the secondary hold, druming a fist against the wall to draw attention. "Sir, it's a transmission," he said casually. "It's from _Barge_."

This caught Walker's immediately concentration, and he relaxed in mid-sit up. Three copper coils slammed back his body against the floor, knocking him headfirst. Mazuri winced, as did Kanna, who was still holding her position. With some effort and a pounding headache, Walker loosened the coils, got himself free, and floated himself over to the main hold, pulling on his uniform top over his white T-shirt, and began buttoning it, passing Maria on the way. As usual, she was absorbed with her tiny computer, watching tiny green numbers scroll by on a black monitor surface. 

"Any news, Maria?" he asked as he stopped himself at the Communications Console.

Not looking, she answered. "No, Lieutenant Walker."

"Any reports?"

"No, Lieutenant Walker."

He sighed. "Any assignments?"

She looked up at him with her big, cynical-looking eyes. "No, Lieutenant Walker."

He pressed the receiver key on the console, as the channel was opened up. "…you know what?" he asked her. "Go send a report to _Barge_ or something, make sure they don't think we've gone nuts. I mean, what the hell are we paying you for?" He paused, looking at her. "And don't roll your eyes at me, kid, it creeps me out, you got a whole bug-eyed thing going there…"

He turned towards the console, though he could still sense Maria was staring at the back of his head hatefully. He turned around again. "Uh…sorry about that bug-eyed thing…"

The console beeped, and an image on the monitor formed. Walker spun around, and finished button his uniform, than saluted. The communication was decrypted, filtered, and enhanced to reveal the face of 'Ambassador' Une, cloaked in the shadows. "Lieutenant Walker."

"Colonel, it's an honor to be able to speak to you again and…"

"Walker, shut up. I've sent you this communiqué to inform you that your combat-alert status is being changed."

_That's it?_ "…Colonel…"

"Since the two Gundams escaped from Singapore a week ago have managed to avoid our Near-Earth Patrols, as well as Barge, we've been commissioning more and more of our Colonial Peace Preservation forces to the assignment. We can already assume that they are in Outer Space by this time, so we must keep them from reaching the Colonies."

_You know, you could have just sent me a memo…at least I wouldn't have to talk to you. And vice-versa. _"Of course, Colonel, I understand and will have my team moved to full alert and…"

"Walker, again, shut up. If the Gundam passes through your patrol area at the rendezvous point, you had better not miss it."

_That won't be hard…all we do is travel from rendezvous point to rendezvous point, then do it all over again. _"Of course, Colonel."

"And remember to make your report, Lieutenant. Your team is still on duty." It seemed as though she was about to end the transmission, when she looked up at him, her glasses flashing. Walker subconsciously shifted backwards. "And by the way, I've spoken to the Colony Delegation, and some members have requested your presence, at the next meeting of the All-Colony Congress, held currently at L2-A23301, to speak on the current situation with the ending threat of Alliance Space Forces. Of course, you have graciously accepted. I'm transmitting your speech text from the Public Relations Department, feel free to modify it slightly, but do not avoid the central point."

This announcement was so quickly delivered that by the time Une finished, Walker's mind was still absorbing the part about him graciously accepting something important, and Une muttered something that sounded like an insincere good-bye. The monitor's image was quickly replaced by the spinning OZ insignia, with a small _AT&T _sponsoring logo underneath it.

Kanna floated into the primary hold, flexing her arm-muscles like steel-girders. She passed right behind Walker, stopped, and patted his shoulder. It seemed as though he had gone comatose, though Walker had a good reputation for being able to remain perfectly still at will. His eyes were trained on the insignia on the screen, as she spoke. 

"So…Boss…new orders?" she asked, grinning in her usual, open matter. 

Walker continued to stare forward, the black in his eyes getting smaller and smaller. 

Kanna turned. "Kid, what's up?"

Maria shifted in her seat. "Some Colonel ordered you guys to go meet the Delegation at L2, apparently." She turned to Walker. "Right, Mr. Lieutenant?"

Walker still didn't respond. Instead, he turned around, looked at the two women in under his command, and floated himself over to the cockpit, closing the door. A moment later, the door opened, Sergeant Bishop was shoved out by the collar, floating away into the hold, and then it shut again, locking this time. Kanna shrugged at her younger companion, then stepped over to the console, pressing the file transmission key. The monitor displayed the long text that the Public Relations Department had developed for Walker, and Kanna read it, narrowing her eyes. 

"…they actually want him to read this?" she asked after a while. "In front of who?"

"The Colony Delegation. The All-Colony Congress of the Delegation, to be specific." She floated over to Kanna, finally taking an interest. "Well, what's it say?"

"You wouldn't understand. Hell, I barely even understand." She pressed the key again, scrolling down. "Seems to be some sort of goodwill speech though."

They could both hear Walker's loud, irrational screaming in the sealed cockpit, though Bishop was the only one who paid attention to it. It was muffled, but the sound of fists against the thin wall wasn't. Bishop quickly floated over to the door and knocked against it, then turned to Kanna. "Uh…you know…Kanna…maybe we should do something?"

Not taking her eyes off the screen, she answered. "Why?"

"Well…he _is _in the ship's cockpit…you know…where the flight controls are, I think…"

Kanna blinked and both she and Maria looked at each other, then scrambled over to the sealed door. The larger woman began beating her fist against it. "Sir! Open up! You're not supposed to do that! Sir! Sir!"

***

On Barge, Communications Chief Helen Sidney entered one of the facility's countless recreational rooms for off-duty soldiers and support personnel like herself. Having a good half-hour before her next assignment, she did what she usually did her free time: drink coffee and watch the wall-monitor. 

She quickly did the first half of her rest-plan: a steaming brew in an open mug with theOZ insignia, thanks to _Barge_'s artificial gravity system, and Sidney sat down on the small couch and held a small remote towards the monitor, pressing a key. The display flicked on, set on _BBC Interstellar_, as always. If you were in OZ, _BBC Interstellar_ was pretty much all you watched. The Colonies' had a reputation for terrifically bad soap operas and game shows, perhaps even more so than Earth itself. 

She took a sip of the brew, frowned at it, then set it down against the small coffee table. The latest news was a new meeting of the Colony Delegation at the second Lagrange Point. Not all of the meetings were broadcasted publicly like this, and it quickly occurred to Sidney that the Delegation obvious had something in store that they thought was important to be publicly known. 

Currently, there was a young Asiatic man with dark hair and large glasses at the podium, whom she recognized as Speaker Nguyen. Besides be one of the younger Delegation Members at only eighteen, Nguyen was typically regarded by his supporters and his opponents as a political genius, one of the most politically-attuned members of his generation. He was also overwhelmingly Pro-OZ, a fact some of his critics attributed to his age. After all, he was born after the assassination of Heero Yuy, the last original member of the Delegation, before it had been suspended by the Alliance. Whatever the case, Nguyen made sure that the ball spent the most time in his court, and he was an invaluable asset to the Organization of the Zodiac, though he didn't know it. 

She turned up the volume, and Nguyen's young, persuasive voice could be heard. He was appealing to the Delegation to applaud OZ's successful 'extermination' (as he put it) of the remaining Alliance Partisans in Outer Space. What Nguyen probably failed to realize was that he had more supporters in the Delegation then he thought: he must have had enough to have this meeting of the All-Colony Congress broadcasted publicly. Still, the young Speaker had a secret weapon, and Sidney was just waiting to see if he was going to use it or not. 

The door to the lounge opened, and in floated Communications Petty Officer Lyn entered, her long brown ponytail trailing after her, towards the coffee machine. Sidney turned her head briefly and waved her hand. "Lyn, take a look at this."

Lyn frowned. "It's just one of those boring Delegation meetings. What's the big deal?"

Sidney sighed. As usual, Lyn failed to see the big picture, or any picture at all. "It had to do specifically with OZ this time."

"When doesn't it?" Lyn floated herself over to the couch and sat, watching the transmission.

Nguyen spoke on. "…this time, it should be very clear to all Colonists that OZ's interest in us is a positive factor. I ask you this: if OZ was not interested in our own safety, why would they continue to arm the Colonies for the sake of defense, rather then just initiate a takeover like the Alliance did, when we are at our weakest? We have retracted our support of the rogue Gundams: that is not enough. We must continue to cooperate with OZ so that we may become stronger. It is not a simple matter of the Colonies becoming part of OZ's economical war machine; indeed, OZ has invested billions in the defense of the Lagrange Points One and Two, and has loaned the third occupied Lagrange Point almost as much, practically as a gift. 

"It is important that we, the All-Colony Congress, accept the facts. Many of us would prefer to retain the opinion that OZ is just a guise for the Alliance Special Mobile Suit Corps, and was directly responsible for the assassination of Speaker Heero Yuy. While both of these may be true, they are poor grounds for accusations. The Specials ended Alliance Tyranny, both on Earth and in Outer Space. OZ has taken full-responsibility Heero Yuy's assassination, and has compensated us ten fold by allowing this Delegation to _exist_. It could be disputed if OZ is truly interested in the concept of 'Total Pacifism', an idea that is making a come back on Earth, as is 'Democracy'. However, they are interested in Peace, and if necessary, Peace through force and show of power. Who are we to disagree of this approach? If Mr. Khushrenada, on Earth, can provide us with what we so desire in return for our willingness for co-existence: namely, independence and self-reliance.

"So I ask you, my esteemed colleagues, to hear my plea, as well as one from OZ itself. I have brought a guest to this delegation, courtesy of OZ's Ambassador Une, who can personally vouch for the difficulties faced in fighting for Peace. Surely we have all heard of Alliance Corporal Muhammad Miriam…"

"Jesus, he can really spout it out, can't he?" asked Lyn, cocking an eyebrow. "I mean, really, this from a Colonist?"

"Well," began Sidney, crossing her legs. "I think it's about damn time one of the locals actually started kissing our asses." She scratched her khaki-pant leg. 

"…so both the Organization of the Zodiac and I am proud to present Lieutenant Christopher Berker Walker, of the Fourth Interstellar Mobile Suit Team, C-Company, of the First Brigade of the OZ Peace Preservation Division." Nguyen stepped down from the podium, nodding his head.

With the clicker, Sidney clicked the monitor off and lay back in the couch. Lyn blinked, with the afterimage from the monitor in her eyes, then tackled Sidney.

"Ow! Lyn, are you insane or something? Get off me!"

"GIVE ME THAT!"

***

"For God sake, sir, try to look natural."

Kanna stood directly in front of Walker, smoothing out his cape. Both, as well as Mazuri who stood to Walker's left behind him, were dressed in full uniform-regalia, though Walker was the only one wearing an officer's cape. He seemed to be having a slight spasm, as his left eyeball twitched periodically and his head was cocked.

"Sir," repeated Kanna, stepping back, and adjusting her own collar. "Be natural."

"Kanna," he muttered, his body as rigid as a board. "I'm about to go speak to the eighty most powerful Colonists in Earth Sphere. This _is _natural." His brown hair, which had a hint of gray in it, was neatly combed and cut to the normal length. The stiff maroon collar, the black-and-maroon sleeves, the khaki-pants, they were all prepared. Unfortunately, everything looked strange when you saw his face, his left eye beading outwards with a raised eyebrow.

"We may have to shave off his eyebrows," commented Mazuri, looking past the curtain at the podium. "But we'll have to do it later. Nguyen's already stepped down from the podium."

Kanna nodded and walked over to Mazuri, then realized they were forgetting something. She spun on her heel, grabbed Walker forcefully by the shoulder, and dragged him towards the curtains. "Sir, if you'll come with me…"

"You know, I've having second thoughts."

But it was no good. Kanna had far more strength in her right arm then Walker had in his entire body, and she dragged him over to the curtain, then paused. "Remember, sir, you're representing OZ. And there's always the face that if you mess this up, the Colonel will have your head on a platter, well-done."

Walker remembered that. "Good point."

"Now, make us proud, sir. Or something. Oh, and don't forget this." From her pocket, she took what appeared to be a small black case, opened it, and literally jammed a small flexible polymer-disc into his left eyeball. She then shoved him by the arm through the curtains, and he emerged clumsily on the other end. His immediate reaction was to shield his eyes from the bright glaring light with his right sleeve. Numerous cameras of the press flashed in his eyes, and all camcorders were trained on him. 

_Oh shit…_

"And here is Lieutenant Walker now!" yelled Nguyen over the sound of the murmuring delegation. He was standing on the opposite end of the stage as Walker, with the podium between them. Walker blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust his eyes to the brightness, and slowly stepped towards the podium. _Just act natural_. He lowered his right arm and rigidly crossed the stage. If he was lucky, no one would see his twitching eyeball. 

Regrettably, he ran into another problem. The base of podium was raised considerably higher then the rest of the stage, and it was a large step from the side (from the back, there were a few stairs to alleviate the problem). Raising his left foot, he took the large step, only to hear a barely-audible clunking noise. And then his foot was stuck. 

Walker looked down at his boot, to find that it was stuck in a crevice between the base of the podium and the actual podium itself. As discreetly as possible, he tried to free his thick black boot from the crevice, but it was no use. 

_God, if you exist, which I sincerely doubt you do, I just want you to know that this isn't funny. _He struggled a bit more, when he remembered that the entire delegation and press was staring at him, and he wracked his mind for a solution. Into his mind popped a little slogan from OZ's earlier days, namely, _What would Treize do?_ It was as good as anything else now. 

He once remembered seeing Treize Khushrenada in a physical position identical to this: it was a briefing of the green-clad Specials Infantry Corps, at Luxemborg. His Excellency's foot probably hadn't been stuck in that case, but it was almost the exact same position. And so, with his left arm relaxed underneath his cape, he raised his right arm in a salute and remained perfectly still, and an applause started up, as the cameras clicked and flashed. _Must be a pretty good 'Kodak Moment'_, he thought sheepishly as they continued snapping photographs. 

The ovation continued, with two, then three minutes of clapping, as Walker struggled to remove his foot from the crevice. It was important that he retain that salute, otherwise the press would sense that something was amiss and he would look like an even greater fool. One last jerk, and his foot popped out and onto the podium. He rigidly scrambled atop the podium and tapped the holster underneath his cape with his index finger. The crowd immediately stopped clapping and became silent. 

Walker tapped the microphone with this finger, and cleared his throat. _Now that I'm up here, if I have a seizure, I'm going to be pissed. _"Honorable members of the All-Colony Congress and Delegation," he yelled out as loudly as he could naturally into the microphone. His voice was broadcasted through large speakers located throughout the amphitheatre. 

"Realizing that, in the past few weeks, most of you have recently heard of me, I come to you as I am: a First Lieutenant, one of dozens, in the Earth Sphere. I am a mobile suit pilot, one of hundreds, in the Earth Sphere. And finally, I am a soldier, one of a million, in the Earth Sphere. My name, as you know, is Christopher Berker Walker, and for some reason, I have risen out of virtual obscurity to be focal point of the Organization that I represent, OZ, and their expeditionary force in Outer Space."

He paused for a moment, then began reading the words projected into the lens in his left eyeball. It was ridiculous to think that he would memorize the _entire speech provided by the Public Relations Department on such short notice, but they hadn't expected him to. He continued. "As I have recently learned, many Colonists, particularly those in the First Lagrange Point, look upon me as some sort of conquering hero. It is primarily attributed to my 'service beyond the call of duty', against Former-Alliance Corporal Muhammad Miriam Umar-Safia."_

After finishing the supposed-Controller General's last name, he was pleased to see many of the delegates shift rather uncomfortably in their seats. _At least they are listening. "As a result of that conflict, many people now consider me a hero. And while I appreciate that, it must be understood that I am simply a soldier following my obligation. After being under insufferable Alliance Rule for nearly two decades, I imagine many of you continue to wonder why a Terrestrial soldier would fight and, eventually, die on behave of a population that has done little, if anything, for him." He paused. "Personally, I do not know. I am just a soldier, and don't concern myself with such details."_

This got some laughs from the Delegates, and Walker immediately continued. "However, I believe it is because what happens in Outer Space, or to the millions of occupants living there, has a direct result of Earth. That feelings such as Nationalism and the desire for Autonomy, which have existed on Earth for thousands of years, since the beginning of determinable civilization, should not be suppressed. And that the Colonists have a birth-right to, sooner rather than later, self-rule and self-govern themselves."

The Delegation began to clap loudly, and he tapped the microphone again, indicating he was not finish. "However, I am not a religious man," he admitted. "I do not think that anyone has any sort of 'God-given right' for Sovereignty. It must be fought for, directly or indirectly. That is why that you, members of the Delegation, cannot expect OZ to simply win your political freedom over. We are not saints or Samaritans. We are not doing this purely out of righteousness. We are doing this because it is _war." _

He leaned forward on the podium, his face bitter as usual. "This is why OZ exists. The primary principal behind OZ is simple: we will fight so you do not to." There was some snickering from the audience, and Walker hissed out. "While this may sound amusing, it is, perhaps regrettably for soldiers like myself, true. War itself will no longer be thought between large populations, but through a select group of individuals. At the same time, it is important that these individuals represent every assembly, every nationality, of the Human Race. In an Earth Sphere where combat becomes a thing only executable between a few people, it must be insured that these people represent every living human. 

"Of course, this state of reality may be nothing more than an article of faith. And OZ might be comparable to the militaristic oligarchies of the past, but there are some defining differences. OZ is a society, and a rather small one at that, when compared to the former United Earth Sphere Alliance and its own armed forces. Weapons continued to be built up, but purely because we intend to use them at some point or another. Our current enemies are the rogue Gundanium mobile suits, commonly referred to as 'Gundams'. However, this war will not last forever. One of the Gundams have already been destroyed on Earth, and they will find difficulty hiding in an Outer Space which refuses to support them any longer. They will, at some point or another, be destroyed.

"Which brings up another question that I have been asked. When fighting is no longer necessary, what will become of OZ. This brings into question the concept of 'Total Pacifism', a popularized concept arising from the recently liberated zones in the Mediterranean Europe. Like Universal Socialism, Total Pacifism traces its origins back to the _Before Colony Democratic Era, though unlike Socialism, it was never fully implicated or formatted until two decades ago. Unfortunately, there are some serious flaws with Total Pacifism, dwarfing those in Older Socialism and even Communism, that make it totally unrealistic. One is the need to institute it: to do so would require a way to discover, against his or her will, a way to read another person's thoughts, as to detect the desire for War when it arises. The other is a clean, efficient method of killing several million select human beings in a matter of a few seconds, when an entire population announces its desire for glory, independence, retribution, or resources through armed conflict and no solution is present, without the possibility of a counter-strike.  Since neither principal is possible, Total Pacifism cannot survive in the long term. I feel it is necessary to state this directly as…"_

Walker stopped, and blinked. As he had been speaking, he used one eye to read the transcript and the other to scan his audience, as independent eye movement was one of many common 'Lieutenant's Trick', and blinked the first eye to stop the transcript. That was not why he had stopped, though. What had caught his attention was a member of the audience, first row, at the last seat to the left. Walker held his breath for a moment, trying to make sure it was whom he thought it was.

***

Jean-Luc Jacob Claude, the Romefeller Foundation's Senior Inspector General, sat in his seat in the amphitheatre. He kept his ebony cane between his legs, his white-gloved hands on the silver-bolted top.

Claude was not a tall man, nor was he a strong built one. He was overweight, approaching obesity, stoutly built, and relatively round in shape. His face and body, hidden under the Victorian-era dress suit, coat, and stovepipe hat he wore, was darkened and wrinkly, from years of living and the stresses of his occupation. He had already been a man by the time the 'Age of the Mobile Suit', as Lieutenant Walker put it, had begun, and the war against the Colonies reached full-pitch. Claude was born in what most considered a long time ago, AC 131, in Versailles. Like most of the Romefeller Court Seniors, he was a Marquis, though he didn't look like one. He looked more like a ruddy European urbanite with a severe lack of taste.

Claude looked up at the soldier standing at the podium. He and Lieutenant Walker shared one thing in common, despite him being less than a third his own age: they were both, despite their dress, thoroughly unremarkable looking. Walker stood at the podium, with his slightly-gaudy black cape over one shoulder, the felt black shirt with a white epaulet, the maroon and gold collars and sleeves, and the loose white khaki trousers, tucked into black boots and a built with the OZ insignia on the buckle. He had stopped talking for a moment, probably to wait for his speech to catch up with him, wherever he was reading it from. 

Then, for a second, his eyes seemed to stop staring straight ahead and looked directly at Claude, who shifted in his seat instinctively. He had no intention of hiding, of course. Intimidation and presense was one of the strongest deterrents, right behind ones own mind. Instead he remained huddled over, his hands on the top of his cane.

Lieutenant Walker took a deep breath and then removed a small object from his left eye and discarded it discreetly. The All-Colony Congress remained silent. Walker continued where he had left of, calmer then earlier. "…as people tend to miss the entire situation when presented with something that promises everlasting peace. It's a very….seductive…promise to a people who have been ravaged by war for nearly a generation. However…"

Walker put both his gloved hands on the podium, and visibly bit his lips. "Even OZ cannot guarantee the safety of civilians. Not from the Gundams, not from Insurrection…not even…from ourselves."

Claude leaned forward. _What is he…?_

"OZ is different from every other preceding military power in the history of humanity. However, it also shares one the characteristics with all new organizations." He sighed. "We of the OZ, the Mobile Suits Forces, the Security Board, even the Peace Preservation, depend on our own support. And we receive support from an Earth-Bound potentate known as the European and International Union of Financial Hereditary Institutes. Some call them 'Royalists', others 'Nobility'. We call them the Romefeller Foundations."

By now, Claude's beady eyes had grown to the size of baseballs, if only briefly. He leaned forward, staring straight at Walker, who had resumed looking at the opposite wall. _He realizes I'm here…what the hell is he planning to do? _

"I will be blunt. The OZ you know is commanded and led by the men and women who took part in Operation _Daybreak, the coup d'etat that removed the UESA from power." With this, the Delegates began to clap, and Walker quickly raised his hands. "No! Let me continue! OZ is commanded by the men and women who took part in __Daybreak, and were formerly known as the UESA Special Mobile Suit Corps. You, members of the Delegation, already know this. The 'Specials' as we were once called, acted independently, but were in fact, commanded and maintained by the Romefeller Foundation. And to this day, I fear that the Foundation continues to significantly impact OZ Foreign Policy, even more then it did the Alliance. And…and I fear that, in time, the Foundation will want a payoff on this investment of there's, the trillions that have been invested into OZ. It will begin with Earth, inevitably, and then eventually move to the Colonies." He looked up at the top of the wall opposite to him, at the giant crest of  the All-Colony Congress and Delegation. _

"The Colonies are an independent entity of Earth, and the concept of a United Earth Sphere is that of a fool. I only hope that by helping the Colonies rearm, you may be able to defend yourself when the time comes, and that, maybe, for the sake of soldiers like myself and the philosophy of Treize Khushrenada's OZ, that…that we will be able to separate ourselves from the Foundation, as we did with the Former Alliance."

Claude was nearly at his feet, staring with hatred at Walker. _The fool! How dare he! And yet, the way he described it 'separate from the Foundation, as with the Alliance'. _

Perhaps Lieutenant Walker, a small soldier who became a Colonial Hero, was the only one who could see the big picture. 

From the Delegation, there was complete and other silence. Then Speaker Nguyen slowly rose to his feet and began to slowly clap. 

In front of Walker, the other Delegates stood up, slowly at first, then all together, and began clapping. Walker turned his attention back to the audience and his forehead creased, unable to comprehend what they were doing at first. Three minutes, for minutes…the clapping continued, as Walker raised a gloved hand and a maroon-black sleeve, nodding, his palm open. 

From his seat, not trusting himself to stand up, Inspector General Claude's jaw clenched tightly, as he felt around his suit pocket. He had a 9mm semi-automatic pistol…the most common firearm in OZ, and probably all of Earth Sphere. He was only about a dozen meters from Walker, and could probably put a round through his head and end this ridiculous predicament. _No…his time will come…Instead of the pistol, he pulled out a small microphone and spoke into it, under the deafening applause. _

"Get that _clown off the stage, __now." _

On the stage, Walker was anxious to get off it, for similar reasons. The overwhelming feeling one got when one realized he or she was about to be shot had settled in his stomach. Behind the curtain, Mazuri and Kirishima clapped widely as well, but the expressions on their faces clearly indicated they wanted him off as well. Walker bowed his head once more and stepped away from the podium, back behind the curtain. As he stepped into the upstage, loosening his collar, his eyes closed. He didn't see Mazuri step forward and, with a gloved hand, clout him across the face.

"Lieutenant, sir, what the _hell were you thinking?" he yelled, madness in his eyes._

Walker opened his eyes, slightly bewildered. "Who said I was thinking?" he asked, rubbing his cheek. 

Kanna sighed, looking out past the curtains. "Well, I guess that's the end of all the paperwork. Not to mention our careers, possibly."

Walker sat down on a wooden crate, pulling off his officer cap and stuff it into a pocket. "Listen…we have about half a minute before the press expect us to be out in the hallway. I'm going to have to shake a bunch of hands, probably, while you two make a run for the Mercedes. Is there anything else you wish to ask, besides reminding me just how mentally perturbed I am?"

"Actually there is, sir."

Walker turned back to Mazuri.

"Why the hell _did_ you do it?" 

Walker sighed. "It was just a matter of time…as my mind decays, I forget things like common sense. But the Inspector General…he was out there….I snapped…this is the beginning of the end." 

The two stared at him, and he stood up, his voice returning to its normal, precise self. "We should get going. The Press are going to eat us alive if we stay much longer. I'll distract them, you prep the car. Hopefully, I won't do anything else we'll regret."

Kanna and Mazuri nodded and turned, the later mumbling, "Too late."

Maneuvering through one of the backstage doors, Walker threw his cape behind him to avoid tripping on it, and entered the primary hall, his strength gathered. The strength quickly evaporated away when he saw who was standing in the hall, surrounded by chatting delegates and jubilant press.

"Lieutenant!" yelled Nguyen, waving his arms over the crowd. "Lieutenant, over here!"

Walker did not bother answered the Speaker, or even looking at him. All he had eyes fore was the suited man standing next to Nguyen. Walker's mouth quickly became dry and he forced himself to step towards Nguyen, who was between him and the exit of the amphitheater. The Inspector General looked up at him with beady, black eyes.

"A daring speech, Lieutenant," congratulated Nguyen, shaking his limp hand. He saw Walker's eyes and turned towards the Inspector General. "Ah, this is Mr. Claude, from the Romefeller Foundation. I'm sure you're surprised to see him, aren't you?" said Nguyen cheerily. Several press began to move over to them, wielding their cameras. "Ah…lets see if we can get a handshake, all right?"

Nguyen moved Walker's limp hand into the gloved hand of the Inspector General and the two shook hands. It was an agonizing moment for both of them, Walker sure that Claude, through some way or another, would infect him with malaria or typhoid, perhaps through the handshake, while Claude was sure that Walker would somehow suck the little remaining life out of him.

"This a very good moment for Peace Relations for the entire Earth Sphere," said Nguyen warmly, his hands on both their shoulders. "However, you'll must excuse me, I have a meeting to attend to."

Nguyen walked off, looking very content with himself, leaving Walker behind with Claude. Neither of the men dared risk looking the other in the eye, as Walker subconsciously felt for his holster. Claude gave a deep sigh.

"You realize, there's going to be an investigation," he said finally.

Walker walked forward, towards the exit, and mumbled his answer. "Bring it on, Claude." 

***

For the next few days, the situation was decidedly uninteresting, a relief for a majority of the 4th Intersteller Mobile Suit Team. Inspector General Claude's threat and had not been a hallow one, as they found out that almost as soon as they left the Colony, their role as a Peacekeeping Force had been drastically changed. 

To the joy of Kanna Kirishima, the paperwork had come to an abrupt end, simply because there _was _no paperwork. They were pulled off assignment, and rather then receiving petty unimportant documentation specifically for Lieutenants, they received nothing at all. 

And it seemed s though, at the rate things were going, Kanna would have a lot of time to celebrate. Inspector General Claude had authorized a full investigation of Lieutenant Christopher Walker, and had only disclosed the report to Duke Dermail himself. Privately, Colonel Une was furious, and publicly she was not pleased with Walker's alterations to the speech provided by the Public Relations Department. 

The Investigation itself pulled up nothing that Walker himself did not know: his slow-paced but continuous mental deterioration, his defective memory, as well as his primary devotion and loyalty in life, to the service of the deceased 'Lightning Baron' Zechs Merquise. None of this impressed Dermail, however, since virtually all of Walker's important past prior to his promotion to Lieutenant surrounded his service to Zechs, and his mental tribulations could be attributed to a long list of causes, from a naturally-induced chemical unbalance to an after-effect of the bloody battle against the Gundams at Corsica. As unnatural as Christopher Walker seemed, it all made sense for the most part.

As for his sporadic little speech, it was also dropped. While he might have become well known, Walker still had very little power as a Lieutenant, with a mere forty men and women under his direct control, thirty-five of which were usually circled from team to team weekly, as was typical with OZ. It was decided that his political opinions, however surprising or inconvenient, made very little difference to the opinions of either his subordinates or to the Colonists in general, though mobile suit pilots Kanna Kirishima and Ali Mazuri were both placed under close watch by the Foundation. 

It seemed as though life would return to the normal Post-Controller General period for the most part, until another threat emerged, from a rather unlikely source: the Colonists, or specifically the Colonial Extremists who might be easily influenced by the ideas of a certain unknown person.

The threat wasn't very discreet either, as one might expect it: not an electronic message of hate over the network, nor graffiti on the hotel room door. 

Someone tried to kill the entire 4th Interstellar in a single blast of shrapnel and flames. 

On the Colony, there were only two situations where the five most visible members of the 4th Interstellar was together, at the same time: their hotel room, which was guarded my numerous armed members of the OZ Security Board wielding submachine guns and sniper rifles. The second was the armored motorcade, a jet-black limousine constructed out of titanium plating, surrounded by armed guards riding armored modified _Kawazaki _super bikes, all brought up from Earth by shuttle, created specifically from use by OZ. 

The assailants, who had originally been denied by the Colonist employees at the Hotel, were forced to pick the second option. It was a rather unexceptional day in Early June, which felt exactly like an unexceptional day in late December, temperature-wise. The motorcade was passing through Sector 4 and 5 of the Outer Ring of the Colony, going from the hotel to the Embassy, for Walker to address a diplomatic matter involving Citizenship at the Second Lagrange Point.

The entire 4th Interstellar Mobile Suit Team traveled through the streets, with tinted windows in the comfort of an armored car. Kanna sat at the back of the cabin, her legs and arms crossed, looking uncomfortable being cramped in what was to her and her alone a small area, while Bishop sat next to Mazuri perpendicular to Kanna, the earlier fumbling around with his plastic multi-colored cube, the later staring intently out the window. Maria sat opposite to Bishop and Mazuri, enjoying the luxury that only OZ and the Colony Delegation could afford, while Walker sat opposite to Kanna, looking through some documents relating to the Embassy matter. 

"I have to had it to you guys," Maria smirked. "OZ knows how to travel with style."

"Yes, well," mumbled Walker, not looking up from the documents. "It's you Colonists who are paying for most of it. Your taxes, anyway."

"That so?" she asked, looking around at the inside. "In that case, I'll help myself to another drink."

"Nothing alcoholic, remember, you're a minor."

Maria stuck her pink tongue out at him and continued, digger through the minibar. Walker rolled his eyes and continued with his work.

"So, what's the deal with this embassador issue?" asked Mazuri after some time. 

"It's concerning diplomatic immunity…since our diplomatic staffs are so large, including armed soldiers and guards and transports," explained Kanna. "There's a dispute over how far diplomatic immunity should be allowed to go."

Mazuri nodded. "I suppose it was just a matter of time."

"Hai."

He turned his head to Bishop, who sat next to him. "How's it going with the cube?"

Absently, Bishop held up the cube in Mazuri's face. "Well, you've got all the colors on two sides lined up….Kudos."

"You're not helping."

"That's the idea." Mazuri lay back in the seat and crossed his ankles. "I can already taste that fifty pounds." Mazuri licked his lips. "Tastes like…well…paper…"

Walker smirked, still not looking up. "It may not do you any good, the Colonies are planning to introduce a standardized currency, like the Euro. In theory, it'll be used at all Lagrange Points. They're calling it….uh…" He flipped through his papers. "Colony Credits_. CC_ for short." 

"What's the exchange rate?" asked Kanna.

"No idea. I don't even know if they've decided on one yet." He was about to explain to Kanna the economical well-being of the Colonies depended primarily on the vast sums of capital lent by OZ, when he noticed Kanna's violet eyes staring straight forward, past him, the size of saucers. Walker was about to turn around and ask what was the matter when it happened.

The first thing he heard was a deafening blast from behind them, followed by a loud, prevailing ringing. Walker instinctively flung himself face forward onto the floor of the car. During his combat training, after he applied for the Specials Corps, he had been warned of what to do in the event of something like this. His ears still ringing, Walker clasped his forearms about his head. There was another roar, followed by the screeching of twisted metal that seemed to make the entire vehicle itself heave; a shower of light objects pattered onto his back. He began to feel lightheaded, and knew his was about to loose consciousness. It was impossible to say whether or not he would regain it. As he descended into painful sleep, he felt the heat inside the vehicle cabin reach an intolerable and unsafe level…

***

Warrant Officer Kanna Kirishima was in a great deal of pain. It wasn't a bleeding pain though, nor was it that sharp. It was more of a very strong ache all over her body, particularly in her head. 

For a few moments, she wondered if her cranium had been split open, but realized that she would not have been able to think so clearly in that circumstance. Whatever the case was, inside the vehicle, it was hot, extremely hot. 

_I'm not going to die like this_, she thought angrily. 

Someone was going to pay for whatever had happen. 

The first thing she noticed was that her entire body, with the exception of her chest, was being exposed to extremely high temperatures, and she felt small globs of something clinging to her uniform She kept her eyes closed and did her best to hold her breath, not wanting to burn her lungs with superheated air. She tried to move, only to find that she was being held back by the seatbelt.

With her hands, she tore apart the seatbelt, which was made of a synthetic cloth. Normally, this wouldn't have bothered her, but the synthetic, when exposed to sufficient heat, would quickly melt, and the inside of the armored car had become a virtual oven. 

_The seats are synthetic too! Shit! _That was what was sticking to her uniform…the synthetic cloth was melting…if her skin was exposed to it, she would be lucky to get away with a third-degree burn. Kanna forced herself to the floor, which was constructed out of a heat-resistant polymer and was just warmer then usual. She could feel her ragged uniform, which was made primarily of a cotton-polyester combination, beginning to get dangerous hot. 

"So much for keeping this…" With her arms, she grabbed the front packet of her uniform, and tore it off, tearing the stitching, and discarded it over her shoulder. She was pleased to know that her heat-resistant tank top was protecting most of her upper-body from roasting like a chicken inside the thing. She coughed several times, then set her eyes on a way to get out. 

_I can't believe I've been so selfish not to consider anyone else in here_, she thought angrily. "Hey!" she yelled out. "Hey!"

Opposite to her, through the clouds of smoke, a voice spoke up calmly. "Hey, Kirishima." 

_The Lieutenant! _"Sir! Are you alive?!"

There was no immediate response, but he did eventually answer. "I don't think so," he answered, just as calm as before.

"Don't worry sir!" she cried out, crawling over towards him. She kept feeling forward until she grabbed what she was fairly sure was a person's arm, then tightened her grip around it. "Come on!"

"No rush. I'm not going anywhere."

She turned to where she thought the nearest car window would be and gave it a swift kick with her foot from the floor. The window chipped, almost fracturing, and completely broke apart with her second kick. Kanna shoved the body through the large window, and Lieutenant Walker's body rolled onto the pavement. He promptly stood up, relatively unhurt, and began to limp away from the wreck, only taking one look back at it. 

About a half-dozen meters from the wreck, a _BBC Interstellar _news team was on the scene, the reporter yelling into her microphone. "…yes, Bernard, I can confirm that the armored car's passengers were in fact, officers from OZ. We don't yet know if there were any survivors, but judging by the size of the wreck, I don't think…"

Walker grabbed the camera with his charred right hand and slung it downwards against the ground. "I'm enacting censorship policies!" he yelled out. A medical team rushed to his side, and he forced them away with his arms. "Let…let go! Let go of me, god damn it!"

Several OZ Security Board members, dressed in their green Infantry uniforms, saw Walker and what he as trying to do and rushed over to assist him, beating away the press and medical team with their rifle stocks. A white ambulance-van drove up to the smoking wreck, and began to assist the motorcade guards who had been knocked out of their bikes and lay unconscious on the ground.

"What the hell happened?" Walker demanded, raising his voice to be heard over the commotion.

"Some assholes tossed a bomb!" yelled one of the Security Board members, aiming his rifle at a group of Press Reporters, who continued to step closer and closer to them. "Fire team Gamma has one of them in custody. The other one escaped down the road, running. Little bastard."

Walker wiped some of the soot from his face. "Where's the other fire team?"

The SB member looked around. "Seventy degrees portside, sir. About five meters."

_You could just say 'to my left', comrade. _Walker turned and saw another small group of green uniforms, to the right of the wreck. They were screaming at a Colonist dressed in mostly brown clothes and occasionally beating him with their rifles. _He's lucky they're not using bayonets. _"Listen," Walker yelled, putting his hand on the SB member's shoulder. "There are still four more officers in that car! You need to go get a mechanical team in there and rip it open!"

"I don't think that's necessary, sir!"

"What?"

The SB member pointed over to the wreck, and Walker watched as one of the bent doors popped off its hydraulic hinges, and three figures emerged. Kanna Kirishima with both A. Mazuri and Dack Bishop leaning on her shoulders. Soon after, Bishop seemed to reawaken and step free of Kanna, with a hacking cough. Eventually, all three made their way over to Walker, who quickly helped Mazuri to his feet. 

Mazuri tried to say something, but began to cough loudly, almost stumbling forward. Walker grabbed him by the shoulder and helped him up. 

"W…what happened?" 

"Mad bomber," mumbled Walker.

 "Oh, well, that's just fucking great." He rubbed his face, then blinked. "Shit! My glasses! My glasses! Where are my glasses? I can't see anything, god damn it!"

Walker looked to see that he was indeed missing his glasses. "Probably in the wreck. Don't worry, we'll get you new ones…"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I NEED MY GLASSES!" He groped frantically at his face.

"He's probably afraid he won't get any without them," mumbled Kanna, as she delicately lifted one of her charred sleeves off her left arm, and sighed. "Great…now I have a third a uniform…" Her temperament took a turn for the worse. "Do they have any ideas how long it is going to take me to get a _new _one? From a custom tailor? On _Earth_?"

Her vicious violet eyes set on the detained Colonist, whose beating from the Security Forces had ended and was wrapped in the fetal position on the ground, nursing his wounds. Kanna stood up to her full height, her head clearly above everyone else's, and began to march over to the would-be terrorist. The green-clad SB members turned to her and quickly dispersed, in an act of caution. Her pace quickened as the crowd of reporters and other civilians parted, and she closed in on him. 

The Colonist, who lay whimpering, slowly looked up to see a giant figure towering over him. Kanna's red hair was darkened by the soot, as was the rest of her, and the left sleeve of her ruined uniform dangling from her arm. His eyes grew wide in terror as Kanna swiftly grabbed him by the throat, raised him to her eye level, so he was about thirty centimeters off the ground. The Colonist was actually just a young man, shortly built and average looking, and not particularly bright looking either. He gagged, trying to breath.

"_Do you realize how hard it is for me to get clothes?_" she asked him slowly. "_Clothes that actually _fit, _without making myself look like a giant whore?_"

The Colonist didn't trust himself to answer that, and instead, continued gasping for air, until Kanna easily tossed him into the air, punched him with her right fist once, moving both of them forward, punched again, then kicked. The Colonist did not touch the ground until after the kick, when he was hurled like a ragged doll into a concrete wall underneath a shop window. He smacked against the wall and fell, blood pouring out of his nose and mouth. Walker watched intently, convinced that there was no way that the Terrorist could have survived that, but saw, much to his amazement, the little Colonist slowly lift his head, his entire face coated with red.

"Very precise, he mumbled.

"No kidding," commented Bishop, speaking again.

Walker turned towards him. "Hey, aren't we missing one someone?" he asked, frowning.

From inside the wreck, as a mechanical team moved in to rip free the other doors with a hydraulic pistol, a high-pitched voices. "CAZZOS! GET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE!"

Bishop rolled his eyes and sighed. "Oh yea, _her_." He made his way over to the wreck, backed by SB members. Walker turned to Mazuri, who was huddling to himself, and patted him on the back. "You're missing quite a show, Ali."

Mazuri scowled. "How did you know my given name?"

Walker pointed to the wreck, as Mazuri looked the over way, and made his way to the back of it. "Just stay here and try to make sure Kanna doesn't kill that guy. It's not that important, but you know, just in case."

Lieutenant Walker slowly stepped over to the back of the motorcade, studying the wreck. From what the Security Board members had told him, he could begin to piece together what had happened: the motorcade was traveling down the street, then the first assassin had jumped out into the front of it, stopping it. From behind, another assassin leapt out of the crowd, between the bikes, and tossed the bomb. The bomb had probably bounced off without exploding at first, then detonated on the road near the back of the car, amongst the bikes. Walker looked up at the black plume that hung over the sky, or what was sky before being ended by more roads and streets, in the circular Colony, then looked down. _That_, he thought, _would explain this mess_. Amongst the torn up bikes were mangled bodies, most of them deeply fried. Amongst the black metallic shards was a bright red streak. When he got up to it, he saw that it was a human hand severed from the wrist, with a black glove of the Infantry. Apart from the bloody stump, the hand was darker then ebony. 

Walker kicked the thing into the gutter, found a bike that was towards the back of where the motorcade had been and thus, less damaged, and lifted it up. He continued thinking. The bomb itself didn't do that much, particularly since none of the vehicles used combustible fuel, however, the bikes caught in the blast had internal generators. The generators exploded, causing a heat wave that burst the car's air-inflated tires and turned it into an oven. _It was probably all in just a few seconds_, he thought as he climbed into the bike. The armored chassis was mostly just scratched, with one of the gauges broken. He pressed the key to start the electric engine. 

He couldn't find a helmet that wasn't burnt or coated with blood, so he bypassed that precautionary measure and twisted the _Kawazaki_'s accelerator, resulting in an excessively loud revving noise. Drawing up from knowledge he had when he used a bike as transport at Corsica, he maneuver through the small groups of civilians and SB members. The rest of the street had been previously cleared for the motorcade, and he raced through at an impressive 140 km/h. Despite himself, he found that he enjoyed being able to do this sort of thing, leaning to the sides, maneuvering through the empty streets. _Heh. Serious Lieutenant Walker likes to joyride. What a joke. _The ride brought back old memories of Corsica, when he had used a small, antique-looking motorbike with a petroleum engine to get around the base, rather then using the shuttlecraft. 

Granted, he didn't know where the other accomplice in the bombing was, but if his collaborator reflected on his own intelligence, it wouldn't be hard too find him. 

***

For one thing, almost all inspiration for their entire organization and its actions came from a reference from an earlier time. More than three hundred years ago, during the _Before Colony _Era, there had been countless small and large Terrorist and Militarist organizations. Each had its own 'claim to fame' through some immoral mean or another. Now, in the Socialist Age, where the government restricted certain rights simply because it was logical and practical to do so, terrorism became a much more difficult task.

So Anarchists and other unsavory characters looked to the past for their inspiration, and one such organization came to mind. They had been a Pro-Allied group of Serbian Extremists who believed nationalism justified assassination. They were called the 'Black Hand', and consisted mostly of young men with a burning sense of nationalism, hatred, and a lot of free time to themselves. Their most famous member, a small, unremarkable looking high-school student named Gavrilo Princip, is known for indirectly triggering the start of the First Great War, more than three hundred years earlier, in the _Before Colony _Era.

Of course, the leaders of this new organization, mostly just academics with a very dark, hidden agenda, could not completely copy the Black Hand. There was no official name for the organization itself, though it belonged in part to certain individuals in the Barton Foundation, based on Colony L2-X18999. These individuals, whom called themselves the 'Inner Circle', were among those who first considered the possibility of sending weapons to Earth to fight the former Alliance. 

However, since _Operation Meteor_ had been a rather disappointing failure, thanks to OZ's unusual new foreign policy, the Inner Circle had been dissolved and its members receding into the shadows. More than one of them was conjuring up revenge against OZ, no matter how friendly their foreign ministers would be towards the Colonists. 

And they did so in considerable secrecy. Edmonton Punchinello didn't even know the name of the Inner Circle potentate he was serving. 

Right now, he was just running.

Edmonton sprinted down the street, dressed in his brown jumpsuit and coat. Behind him, the whine of the superbike's tires against the pavement. He turned around, and a large object rocketed past him, almost knocking him to his feet. He spun around just in time to see the bike streaking its tires on the pavement in a smooth black line, making a U-turn, and come to a stop behind him.

Edmonton gasped quickly and began a mad scramble in the opposite direction. On the bike was one of the OZ officers, his uniform and face covered with soot. The officer slowly got off, propping the bike against a lamppost, and slowly walked up to him. 

The young bomber began to run, the most logical thing to do, when the officer reached into the holster on his built, pulled out a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, and fired a single shot. Edmonton let out a cry in pain and grabbed at his leg, a small but significant amount dribbling out, collapsing to the sidewalk.

The officer continued to walk up to him, taking his time, as Edmonton stayed on the ground. _Got to get up, got to get up! _He tried to lift his leg, a sharp pain darting through his spine, and he yelped again.

By this time, the officer was only a few meters away, walking at a leisurely pace. Edmonton's worse horrors were coming true. He pressed himself against the nearest surface, a concrete wall, and whimpered, avoiding eye contact. The officer stopped within twenty centimeters of him, then bent his legs, kneeling down. With his eyes closed, Edmonton felt the muzzle of the pistol, still warm, lightly pressed against the side of his head.

He swallowed. "So…what are you going to do to me?" he asked grimly.

The officer smiled with his darkened face. "Hard to say. You've caused OZ a lot of trouble, but publicly and privately, with your failed assassination. I'll interrogate you quickly, and then turn you over to our own Security Board. But don't give up hope. Everything ends sooner or later. In the end, we shall shoot you."


	13. The Capture

**Soldier of OZ: Walker's Story**

**_Chapter 13_**

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gundam Wing or Sakura Wars, which are property of Bandai and ADV Films/Sega respectively._

He laid it out for them; all of it, in complete and painful detail. And when he had finished, they were, as he'd expected, rather disappointed.

"I'm rather disappointed in you, Provost," commented one of the men of the group known as the Inner Circle, making his opinion clear. 

"I agree," said another, rapping his fingers against the conference table. "You were never given authority to launch an assassination attempt against any members of OZ. Certainly not at the time."

Provost Quinze nodded, speaking in his slightly high-pitched nasal voice. "I realize that, but understand, I never sanctioned such a crude operation…"

The other, the Mogul, continued. "Now, just because you were the direct manager of Operation _Meteor_, you are not above the rest of us, Provost…"

"Yes, yes, there will be repercussions, Jeremiah…"

The Provost found himself slumping in his seat. They were referring to him by his given name; now they were upset. "I realize that, and I'll take care of it," he said in his nasal voice, with its whiny nature. 

"I'm sure you will," added another, the Delegate. "I think we may adjourn this meeting."

The members of the Inner Circle dispersed through the conference chamber. The Provost grabbed his brown coat off his chair, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

It was the Mogul, Dekim Barton. "I think we should tread more lightly, Jeremiah. These are inconvenient times, with OZ having so much support in Space. And it may be a long time before we can reconsider Operation _Meteor _together..."

"Of course," answered the Provost. He walked away quickly, leaving the Mogul behind. 

"It will be some time before I will consider anything with _you_ either, Dekim." 

***

"Would you like some?"

Edmonton Punchinello looked up from his seat at the around table. He and the speaker, an OZ Lieutenant who constantly kept the pistol in his left hand trained on Edmonton's head as the two sat, were the only occupants of the Café. 

"Would you like some tea?" Lieutenant Walker asked again. 

Edmonton shook his head, avoiding eye contact. Walker shrugged and set the pitcher aside, and with his free hand, picked up a small leather wallet he had confiscated from Edmonton, all the time keeping his pistol aimed at him. "Edmonton Punchinello," he read out loud as he read through the identification cards. "Born After Colony One-Seven-Seven. Employee of the Barton Foundation." Walker looked up interested. "Barton Foundation?"

The other nodded rigidly. Walker looked into his eyes, then smirked. "If you think this is unpleasant…well, just be glad I didn't send Kirishima after you." 

Edmonton didn't bother asking who he was asking about. Instead, he shuffled his feet around a bit as Walker stood sat back, relaxing. "Barton Foundation, Barton Foundation…" he repeated. "I didn't know there were any major foundations in the Colonies, besides those ones who made a fortune in the Middle East…the Winners. I suppose I was wrong."

Walker turned his attention directly to Edmonton. For a moment, it seemed as though he was going to ask about the Barton Foundation. "So, Edmonton," he said quietly. "You have any kids?"

"No, sir."

"I see. I've noticed that Colonists typically have larger families then Terrestrials. Perhaps it just a coincidence." Walker continued looking through the identification cards, one at a time. "You know, on Earth, a few generations ago, it was a common practice for poor families to have many children. Very common." He leaned backwards in his chair. "I imagine you still do that, here in Outer Space. It's rather stupid, since having more children just deteriorates the health of the mother, and make the family poorer. I guess that's how the poor past their time…" he smirked.  

The other didn't answer, of course. Walker set down the wallet and drank some of the tea. When you had a firearm, psychological warfare was easy against the unprepared, and very effective. Anyone could do it, for the most part. Walker didn't even need to resort to browbeating. Finally, Edmonton spoke. 

"It's not my fault," he blurted out quickly. "I was just following orders. Really, I don't know anything…about the Inner Circle, about the White Fang, they never told me anything!"

Walker stared at him, his eyes narrowed. _White Fang?_ It sounded more like a Caucasian Supremacy group, like the ones that had existed two centuries ago in Western Europe and North America, prior to the Revolution. If Socialism hadn't been very good for Democracy, it was far worse for Racism and Prejudice. He didn't speak.

Edmonton paused in mid-speech, realizing he had made a mistake, and went silent again. A thin smile formed across Walker's face. He had work to do, and it was best he didn't spend any more time on this would-be assassin. Slowly and with excessive care, he stood up, leaving a mark of soot on the chair and tablecloth. Edmonton's rigid form immediately relaxed, until Walker pressed the muzzle against the side of his head as he walked by.

"You're a very interesting young man, Mr. Punchinello," he said slowly. "Perhaps we'll meet again in the future."

Edmonton Punchinello closed his eyes as tightly as possible, as Walker pulled the trigger.

There was a click, the top of the pistol's barrel pulled back and locked into place, and nothing happened. Walker pulled the pistol away, and loaded in another magazine. A bullet slid into the chamber, and the barrel realigned. 

"Good evening, Mr. Punchinello." Walker made his way towards the exit, slipping the now-loaded pistol back into his holster. He would have to remember that name, _White Fang. _It was probably just his own paranoia, but it might be important in the future…

***

"He's still alive!"

With one hand feeling the pulse of the Colonial Radical, identified as Lee Dawson, and another wiping the soot from his face, A. Mazuri's brow creased and he looked up. "Hey, he's still alive!"

A medical team, which had become more subdue after seeing what happened Dawson, scurried over and gingerly lifted the bloody, beaten young man onto a stretcher. Mazuri wiped some more soot from his face, then wiped the dried blood off his hands. He risked a glance over to Kanna Kirishima, or at least where he thought she was: he couldn't really tell without his glasses, though the shape and build of her body was very distinctive. 

Warrant Officer Kirishima stood, with a powerful aura surrounding her, in her darkened uniform. One of her pant legs was torn up to the knee, and the gray tank top she normally wore, despite being heat resistant, was torn and covered with carbon. She stood motionlessly with her arms crossed, staring over the wreckage of the Armored Car.

Against a building, Dack Bishop and Maria Rosetto sat, their clothes similarly charred and ruined. Bishop's uniform was now entirely black, including the spots that were supposed to have been maroon, and was missing a sleeve, while Maria, who had no sleeves to start with, was miraculously unscratched, but her complexion blacked and her skirt torn. The two sat gloomily next to each other, surrounded by green-clad Security Officers.

They rolled Dawson away into an ambulance. A more daring pair of reporters watched on, one of them conjuring up a possible risky story on excessive force used by the OZ Peace Preservation while in Outer Space. She beckoned her partner, the video-grapher, and the two slowly approached her from behind, the video-grapher keeping his equipment trained on Kirishima's partially-bare muscular brown back. The reporter swallowed and attempted to get her attention.

"Off…Officer Kirishima…" she sputtered out slowly, aiming the microphone at her. "May we…"

Without taking her eyes of the wreck, Kanna stepped back, reached over with her bare arm, exerting what appeared to be little force, and grabbed the reporter by the collar, lifted her up, and threw her with considerable force. She flew briefly and into a brick wall, striking it flatly and falling to the ground.

The video-grapher stepped back nervously, saw Kanna's violet eyes for a second, and made a difficult decision: he set down his equipment, mumbled an apology, and vanished into the crowd. 

Annoyed, Kanna sighed and looked down, closing her eyes. _Another headache. _She was grateful of one thing though: it was no longer her responsibility to deal with the flow of paperwork and the cross-examination that would surely follow the attempted assassination. _Well, the Lieutenant doesn't seem to mind filling papers or crunching numbers. _

She checked her watch, tapped it, and observed that it was no longer working, meaning she would have to order a new one or purchase a cheap replica from a peddler somewhere in the Colony. Her acute hearing picked the sound of screeching tires along the pavement and she instantly turned to the source.

Around the corner, a super-bike dove at a low angle, nearly sliding across the pavement, straightened out, and came to a stop. Lieutenant Walker stepped off awkwardly, futilely attempted to smooth the creases in his charred uniform, and walked over to her.

"What happened?" he asked.

Kanna stared at him, her mouth twisted into an unusual expression, her eyes wide. At first, she thought he was simply trying to be cheerful about the situation, but it became apparent that he wasn't joking. She stared at him for a few more seconds. "An assassin blew up the car."

Walked quickly glanced at the wreck, and nodded. "Oh yes, of course." He scratched the back of his head. 

_Sure, sir, whatever you say. _

He turned over to where Bishop and Maria had been sitting. "Fourth team, assemble!" he yelled out. "NOW!" 

They dragged themselves to him, looking exhausted. Walker turned to the last remaining member. "Mazuri! That means you too!"

Mazuri turned back to Walker, sighed, and shuffled over there, rubbing at his eyes. "Sir, I need…"

"Yes, yes, I know, you need your glasses," Walker muttered hurriedly. "But we've got some more pressing issues at the moment." 

Bishop nodded. "Yea. For example, you know it's a eight block schlep to the nearest McDonalds?" 

Walker struck his face with his glove, not very hard, but with just enough force to give him a jolt. "Bishop, just _shut up_ for a moment, please." 

"No problem, sir. That I can do."

"Thank God for that," muttered Maria. 

Walker took another look at the wreck, sighed, and pulled out a small pad of 'Post-It' notes, and a pen. He began to scribble rapidly on them, then handed out three small yellow sheets to Kanna, then Mazuri, then Bishop, then, after pausing for a moment, wrote one down and handed the sheet to Maria, who took hers with some offense. 

"What are these for?" Mazuri asked, looking at his note.

"Yea, sir…all that's on here is your signature…C. Walker…"

"They're passes for temporary leave," he said quickly, watching for their reactions. They were certainly entertaining enough. 

"_NANI?_"

"_NINI?_"

"_WHAT?_"

"_CHE?_"

"In light of this recent assassination attempt," Walker began, with voice suddenly becoming very regulated and formal. "I, as commanding officer of the Fourth Interstellar Mobile Suit Team, think it is critical that the entire team be divided and dispersed, until this situation can be examined and the threat neutralized." He narrowed his eyes, and his voice became harsher. "You've got forty eight hours. I will remain on assignment, but the rest of you may do whatever you want, as long as it is legal. Remember, you are no longer regarded as OZ officers for this duration, but our expected to conduct yourselves in a manner fitting to your vocation as mobile suit pilots…" 

He stopped when it became apparent that they didn't care. Kanna stretched her muscular arms, resulting in a sequence of popping noises from the joints. "Well, I'll see you guys around. I'm gonna go find a gym or something…" she said in her open, frank voice. She turned around and began to walk away, as though she had lost interest in the subject.

Mazuri turned likewise, heading in the opposite direction down the street. "Uh, yes. Right. I'm going to go find a nightclub or something. I heard there's one with a Women's Clinic near it…" He began to walk off.

Bishop stood still for a few moments, then blinked his eyes. "Hey, Mazuri! Do you mean like with strippers and stuff?" He took off after him into the crowd. "Hey, wait up!" 

This left Walker uncomfortably alone with Maria, who stared at the little yellow piece of paper in her hand. "…are subject to whatever laws from Colonial Courts." He sighed, then looked down at Maria. "Well, you're a Colonist, so I suppose you know how to act _roughly _normal on a Colony." 

Maria folded up the small piece of paper and began walking away. "Sure, why shouldn't I? I was born on one." She turned, and gave him a wink. "It has something to do with your organization. Aren't you proud of me?"

She turned and resumed walking off, completely unconcerned. Walker scowled and yelled to her back. "Don't go sabotaging computer systems or mobile suits or anything! I'm not going to stand their way in if they put you in front of a firing squad! You hear me? God damn it…"

***

Approximately twenty thousand kilometers from the first Lagrange Point, off Colony C1102, a recon satellite ran through its normal programming parameters. It swept its primary scanning camera forty-five degrees Earthward, then analyzed the results. After that, it repeated the process all over again, eventually completing a full circle of three hundred sixty degrees.

After completing the forth sweep, so to speak, the satellites' rudimentary computer brain noticed something unusual: a spheroid object with a radius of approximately fifteen meters, traveling at a relatively slow twelve hundred kilometers an hour. It appeared to be slowed by the gravitational field of the Colonies, and was traveling rather randomly.

As it used its camera to try to relocate the object on its flight course, the satellite's computer determined that the object was traveling in an ellipse, driven towards the gravity of the first Lagrange Point. The location of origin was calculated to be the Earth itself. Closer inspection revealed that the object was a standard Heavy-Lift Vehicle, or HLV Carrier.

The satellite began transmitting hailing codes, as standard procedure called. When this failed to get a response, it transmitted data to the nearest OZ Garrison on the strange HLV carrier. 

And, with relatively little difficulty, one of the three remaining Gundams was located. 

***

The Chestnut Tree, a small, pitiful diner somewhere in the poorer section of the Colony, was almost empty. A ray of artificial light slanting through a window fell yellow on dusty tabletops. Lift music trickled through the small, low-qualities speakers mounted on the side of each table against the wall. 

Walker sat alone in a corner, thoughtfully gazing into an empty mug. Now and again, he would reflect on how pleasant it was to be able to sit, alone, at peace, for a short time. Any longer, and it would have driven him insane. 

Unbidden, a younger waitress in a rustic-looking blue apron holding a coffee pot refilled his cup, shaking into it a few drops from the bottom. Walker gave her a nod and she timidly left, careful not to make eye contact. He drank the coffee, plain and strong tasting, and set the cup down. There was a beeping noise from his belt. 

He reached down and pulled off his beeper. It was from Nichol. 

"_Captain _Nichol," he hissed into it quickly. 

"Walker! I just heard what happened, I'm very sorry about…"

_Like hell you are, you Romefeller patsy_. "And I just heard about your promotion," he muttered. "_Moseltov_, comrade," he added with sarcasm. 

"Oh, yea, thanks…" he said, his mood improving. Then it became hurried again. "Crap, Walker, get over to the Spaceport as soon as possible. I'll brief you on the way."

"Well, I don't have a team…"

"My God, did they all die?"

_Not that you give a damn, but_. "No, I had them dispersed and…"

"Oh, yea, right. Doesn't matter, we got mobile dolls. You'll need to…"

"_Tycho_, slow down," Walker snapped angrily. "What's happening?"

Over the beeper, Walker heard Nichol take a deep breath.

"It's the Gundam Zero-Two. We found it."

Walker dropped his beeper into his coffee mug. 

***

Wearing a sports coat over her charred uniform, Maria Rosetto pushed the heavy metal door inwards and stepped into a well-sized, dimly lit room.

Inside there were a few lamps emitting cascades of light that reflected oddly and in strange colors, the low humming of the cooling fans of computers, and of course, monitors. Dozens of them, scattered throughout the room on all the walls and on small tables and desks. They easily outnumbered people in it. 

Maria adjusted her viewscreen-goggles, pressing a small switch on them, and continued farther inwards. One of the people looked up and began to barked out a question, though his voice was lowered, as though in courtesy for the others in the quiet room. "Who are you?" he asked.

She smiled, then shook her head a bit. A stream of light reflected off her pink hair, and she stood still. 

"I'll be damned…" said the other, understanding. "The Italian."

She nodded. "Maria Rosetto." 

The other, a young man who was slightly older, scratched his dark hair. "That would explain how you managed to get in here. Only one of extraordinary expertise could get through my perimeter." 

"Don't flatter yourself, friend." She looked around. "Not exactly the greatest place you've got here. It could use some more light." She walked up to him, only to bump into a counter he was standing behind she couldn't see. "I assume you are…?"

"The Korean. Kim Pak Huang." He titled his head and grinned back at her, adjust his own goggles. "You might know me better by my other alias, Parker." 

She nodded unconcerned. "Name sounds familiar." 

"I did some work up in El-Three. Pretty good considering the lack of material to work with over there."

She nodded. "And you did take out three Leos. Must be boring now, with OZ around."

Parker sighed, and stepped around the counter to her. "OZ is the worse thing that happened to me," he sighed.

_Another plus with the job_, she thought contently. 

"They're not like the Alliance. They're no good for hating. You don't do hacking jobs against OZ because you don't like them. With the Alliance, at least we could justify what we were doing. Not to mention getting help from the locals. Everyone but us likes OZ. It makes being an honest hacker a lot harder."

Maria rolled her eyes. _Honest hacker. Now there's an oxymoron for you. _Every hacker already had the fact that they were the scum of Earth Sphere ingrained into their minds from the beginning. "Anyway, I'm looking for someone."

The Korean shook his head. "Dunno if I can help you, Italian. But if you go to the back, you can probably find the Pakistani. He usually knows what's going on. He's busy talking to the Turk. She doesn't know what's going on. Come to think of it, she's not even that good of a hacker." He scratched his hair again. "Claims to be a gypsy. But with a rack like hers, I guess it doesn't make a difference what you are," he grinned. "They're over there, in that table with the dark light. Both of them."

"The Pakistani, eh? It's been a while…at least _he's _still alive. I assume you're talking about him and the Turk," muttered Maria humorlessly. 

"Uh, sure…"

She rolled her eyes and slowly walked to the back of the room, taking care not to step on any of the other persons resting on the floor, huddled in front of their monitors. Eventually, she spotted what appeared to be a soft, glowing red light on a raised surface, with two people sitting at it, one with a monitor. She quickly made her way, her eyes finally adjusting. The familiar figure of the Pakistani came into her field of vision.

And then she saw the Turk. And she stopped in her tracks.

The Italian's eyes grew to the size of saucers once more, and the Pakistani turned from his female companion and waved at her. "Rosetto! Long time no see, Italian! Come over and sit!" Once again, he appeared to be yelling, but his voice was lowered in courtesy for the others in the room.

Maria didn't hear him. 

The Turk was _huge_. And not in the height sense, like Kanna Kirishima. But in a different sense she was like Kanna. Her chest was about the same shape, more or less, but smaller in proportion. Slowly, Maria sat down in a chair, thankful that the goggles were hiding her eyes. And she also had a darker complexion then Maria, and was also older.

"Italian!" whispered the Pakistani, whose real name was Butrus Dawud Dabir, gestured for her to sit down. "How have you been? I was wondering if they had finally caught you."

She wanted to say _Who's they? _but as she said down, she only said one thing. With her eyes still planted on the Turk's exceedingly loose shirt, she said surprisingly loud. "Well, if it isn't Silicon Valley!"

***

At the same time, more or less, Corporal Mazuri and Sergeant Bishop were also in a dark room, though there's was lit up occasionally by neon lights and, rather then being quiet, was being continually and thoroughly blasted by deafening instruments modified with techno-synthesizing.

Under normal circumstances, Mazuri would have been covering his ears with both hands and yelling out, "I can't hear myself thinking!" to Bishop, who might be doing the same. However, Mazuri, being an OZ Officer, was sat directly up front at the Cabaret _La Rienna en Rouge_, was too preoccupied to notice the blaring music doing irreversible damage to his ears. Instead, he was more preoccupied with the women who walked up and down the stage slowly, and the large clump of Colony Credit notes in his hand. 

"This is great," mumbled Bishop, who sat next to him. Dack's head rested against the stage lightly, a small stream of saliva forming from the corner of his mouth onto the wooden stage. 

Mazuri nodded slightly, holding a martini limply in his hand. He gave one of the entertainers the equivalent of two hundred Pounds, several thousand Colony Credits, by sliding it into one of her few articles of clothing, and she gave him an appreciative look. 

His reactions and brain processing ability slowed down by the alcohol, Mazuri slowly turned towards his comrade. "Hey…Dack…you want another lap dance?"

For a few seconds, Bishop mouthed the word 'yes' three times, then blinked. "No, I'm okay man. Maybe later," he said, his lips moving mechanically. 

Mazuri nodded slowly and slapped the Entertainer on the left buttock. The Entertainer continued on her route, and a waitress walked up to Mazuri. In reality, it was the same waitress who served Lieutenant Walker coffee, her shift at the diner ending and at the cabaret beginning. She wore the same blue apron, though now, that was all she wore. 

"Uh, sir?" she asked, trying to be heard over the music. "Would you like another martini?"

Mazuri slowly turned his head over towards her, wishing he had his eyeglasses. "….sure."

She reached over excessively past Mazuri's lap as he hung there, and spotted a small glint of metal on his uniform cap on his lap. The silver of the small insignia stitched onto it, a lion for the Terrestiral OZ forces, and a goblin with a pointy , sometimes affectionately referred to as the 'Wizard of OZ', for Extraterrestrial soldiers.  Most of the soldiers, from OZ, she remembered, had brass ones. She remembered seeing one on the man's cap at the Diner, the infamous Lieutenant Walker.

"Are you a mobile suit pilot?" she asked innocently. 

Under normal circumstances, Mazuri would have quickly jumped on the situation as another chance to, as he put it, 'make sweet love with the colonists…', but the eight martinis he had already had were severely impairing his thinking processes. He spaced out for a few more moments, and nodded. "Yea…" he said, over the course of three entire seconds.

She nodded. "Wow. You must be very heroic."

Part of Mazuri's brain that wasn't drenched in alcohol squealed out in pain. _You've got a chance to score with a waitress at a strip joint! You fool! Why did you drink eight martinis! Screw the irreplaceable brain cells, you've ruined the polarity of your babe magnet!_

Mazuri spoke again. "…_right_…" Then his held slumped onto the stage. At almost the same time, Bishop blinked again and seemed to lift his head, and turned to the waitress. The gears in his mind turned slowly, slowed but not stopped by the few beers he had. 

"Ah, you know…" he began, as the gears stopped. He reached down and pulled off his own uniform cap, hiding it in a pocket. "I'm a mobile suit pilot too."

The waitress's eyes glimmered. "Really?"

"…uh…yea…"

***

Captain Tycho Nichol nervously shuffled his feet through the halls of Colony L2-C1102, dressed in his black uniform. Finally, he found who he was looking for: Colonel Une, who stood in the middle of the corridor, speaking to three members of the Colony Delegation.

"Colonel Une!" he said quickly, coming to a stop directly behind her. Une slowly turned around to face him, giving Nichol some time to think of how he should word what he was about to say. "We now have the item in question."

Une looked at Nichol with oblivious eyes. "Huh?"

This was going to be difficult. "Colonel, please return to Barge."

Another pause. "To Barge?"

"They're orders from his Excellency."

Une looked as though she was about to doze to sleep. "His Excellency…Treize…"

Is she really going to fall asleep right now? Nichol blinked. At that moment, Une seemed to undergo a strange transformation, and she narrowed her eyes. "I'll return to Barge."

Nichol nodded. _And I will forget what just happened…_

***

At nearly the same time, Walker ran quickly into the hangar, dominated by the three black Taurus' of his command. Almost immediately, another officer tossed him a large, light-blue helmet, which he caught. 

He looked at the helmet, with its unbuckled nozzles and air hose. "What?"

"We're being sent out. The HLV carrier is approaching the Colony," the Officer shouted. Walker recognized her as Sergeant Carter. Carter commonly led a Colonist Taskforce and was involved in the recruitment campaign. She was already clad in a norm suit, with OZ Extraterrestrial insignia on the shoulder. Her massive blue Space-Leo was in the corner of the hangar.

"How are we going to recover it, exactly?" he asked, rapidly taking his suit out of a locker. 

"Harpoons and tow cables. They're scrambling a Colonist technician team in some Leo's too. We'll have Taurus dolls to back us up, just in case."

Walker nodded grimly. "That would be wise. Somehow, I don't think it is going to be this easy…" And he found himself wishing that his other pilots were here, as oppose to mobile dolls.

***

About twenty minutes later, the other two were standing in the Operations Room of the OZ Guard Station. They had isolated the HLV Carrier to a specific sector of space, a few thousand kilometers from the Colony, of approximately eight thousand cubic kilometers. 

"Are you certain?" Une asked icily. 

To Nichol, this was a completely different Une, the Fiery Une, infamous in OZ for her brutality and efficiency. She followed him, dressed in her bright red OZ Tokusa uniform. She turned her attention to the large monitor that dominated the Operations Room. Lines marked the projected flight path of the HLV, which seemed totally random. 

"There's no question. It's the HLV carrier that left Earth carrying a Gundam."

Une smiled. "The Gundams are evil, and will cause damage to the Colonies. They'd be valuable as our space goats evil." She turned to him. "Bring out the Taurus'! Capture it!"

"And what will we do with the pilot?" asked Nichol.

"Depends on his looks," she said starkly, turning back to the monitor.

Nichol mentally frowned. He hadn't expecting this as a response. "Huh?"

Une's emerald eyes shifted towards him. "If he's ugly, let him live. If there's a chance people might sympathize for him, kill him. We can't have anything get in the way of changing the general public's mind or distorting the Colonists."

"Let him live if he's ugly?" repeated Nichol. He almost asked if that was why all the members of the Romefeller Foundation on Earth were still alive, but managed to hold it back. "Really?" he simply said.

Une gave out a vaguely sinister chuckle. "Just kidding," she said, not looking at him.

***

Kanna Kirishima sat behind the curtain at a small Soba stand, inhaling one of her favorite foods: fried noodles. Using wooden chopsticks, she finished the food quickly, in front of the vendor.

"God, I love this food! Finally, something good in this Colony."

The Vendor, a coarse looking man who stood shorter then her, watched as she ingested a bowl in record time. "Uh, yea," he began. "You might want to…pace yourself…"

Kanna was dressed in her usual tank top, but now she wore a short blue Japanese-style jacket. "Sure, whatever!"

The Colonist Vendor leaned on one arm, rubbing his bald head with the other. He sighed deeply. The recent Assassination attempt was on his mind. In it, he saw the woman eating in front of him, vividly ripping a Colonist to shreds. "So, I heard about that assassination attempt…"

Kanna continued eating. "Yea. Pretty bad," she answered, unconcerned. 

The Vendor gulped. "Yea, bad."  He rubbed his stubby chin now, nervously. "Some of the Colonists here…" he began, then paused. 

Kanna caught a glance of him through the rim of the bowl. "Don't worry… I don't do that sort of thing to the ones…that feed me," she assured him between bites.  

"Really?" asked the Vendor. "That's…well, it's a relief!" His temperament improved. "Tell you what, the rest is on me!"       

"HAI! I'll have another!" 

He quickly set down another bowl, taking the empty one, the assurance bringing new vigor to his service. She helped herself to the next bowl, barely pausing between them.

"Wow! This stuff is great!" She made a repulsive gobbling noise

"Hey, decide if you're going to eat or talk!"

"Then I'll eat!" she cried out jovially and continued. She resumed slurping loudly. "Hey, bring me another one, all right?"

He nodded. "Coming up."

As he was cooking rapidly, he noticed that the slurping noise had ended. Kanna was still holding the bowl up to her face. He looked at her. "Eh?"

No immediate response. She set down the bowl and held up her left hand towards him, as she looked to her right. "Hold on."

"What's the matter?"

She stood up, pushing the stand's cover out her face. "I _smell_ blood."

***

Sergeant Carter, who's assignment was to overseer a pair of Colonist technicians who were supposed to recover the HLV carrier, sat in her MS cockpit, in a light-blue norm suit. The three of them all piloted newer-version Space-Capable Leos, painted in the light blue colors of OZ. Around twenty kilometers behind them, the 4th Interstellar Team followed in their Taurus SMS.

Using her improved sensor suite, Carter did a full scan on the object that seemed to float in space. It was vaguely spherical, but with a blunted face, and approximately thirty meters in diameter. One of the technicians spoke out nervously over the channel. "We have confirmation on the carrier! It's an HLV from Singapore used to transport a Gundam!" 

Carter responded, her voice distorted by the subspace frequency. "No energy detected! It's a bloody miracle that it was able to fly this far without refueling!" 

On the small high-frequency display, similar to the one mounted in Walker's forward viewscreen of his SMS, an image of a technician came up. "It's possible that nobody's even on it!"

Carter shook her head slightly. "Regardless, orders are to capture it! We'll tow it along to Colony Cee-One-One-Zero-Two!"

"Affirmative!"

The three Leo's made their approach, Carter leading. With caution, she extended the right arm of her mobile suit and pressed it against the HLV's surface, causing it to slowly stop. 

At that moment, Carter recalled something she had learned in training. There had been an exercise, almost exactly like this. She had made a fatal mistake. She tried to open the channel in time, but wasn't fast enough. 

From beneath her arm, a bright green light sliced through the HLV's shell and directly through the right arm of her Leo. Carter gasped, almost choking her own air, in shock, and managed to force herself away, but too slowly. Next, the green light, which Carter's shaken mind decided most have been a thermal-energy weapon, came from her left and sliced cleanly through her waist, just barely puncturing the internal reactor. The two components of the Space Leo floated apart for a few brief seconds.

Shit, I can't believe I made that mistake…She screamed into her helmet the cry that so many OZ and Alliance soldiers had made, though she didn't even have the opportunity to finish it. "IT'S A GUND…"

The internal reactor, directly behind the cockpit of the mobile, exploded in a bright yellow fireball, vaporizing Officer Carter almost immediately, barely giving her time to think about how they would explain to her sister, a secretary in OZ, about how she had died.

"What?" yelled one of the technicians, caught off guard. After the Leo, the HLV block itself exploded, and a terrifying, humanoid shape flew through it, using the explosion as propulsion. It was primarily black and white, and had in its hands it held a massive thermal-energy weapon. In a single, clean swipe, it managed to cut through both of the technicians' Leos in a similar fashion as it had to Carter's, and they exploded shortly after. 

From twenty kilometers away, Walker watched in horror at what had just happened. Before he could think clearly, he screamed out over the channel. "Taurus mobile dolls, attack!" He shifted his own Taurus back, exchanging places with one of the MDs, which quickly flew up. The two MDs formed a formation and flew to counter the Gundam. Walker had three mobile dolls, one of them commandeered from a patrol group that seemed to be doing nothing else at the time, and his own mobile suit, and all three of them fired their verniers and charged towards the Gundam.

It hung there in space, hoping that the Taurus suits would get close enough to combat at close range, but the four Taurus's quickly diverged thirty meters away from the Gundam and split in four different directions, then began to rapidly circle it at different angles. The Gundam continued to simply float there, not responding. 

Finally, they began their attack. Two of the mobile dolls, using beam rifles, flew backwards, facing the Gundam, and took carefully placed shots at it. The slow-moving particles quickly slammed into the Gundanium mobile suit at its torso, causing it to shudder noticeably. The third mobile doll joined them, and they began a rapid strafing mode where they would circle the Gundam at different angles, and fire at the same time. Eventually, one of their shots struck the Gundam's head, knocking it backward. 

Walker watched carefully, gliding his Taurus along. The Gundam raised its left arm and, rather unusually, fired a small array of thrusters on the mounted shield, which opened up to reveal a very short beam blade. It fired off, traveling unguided in a straight line, only to miss one of the mobile dolls. 

Then mobile dolls then began to concentrate their fire from behind the Gundam, Walker joining with them, and raised his beam rifle once more, and fired easily. The Gundam drifted forwards, as shards of gundanium broke off. Switching weapons, he brought up the red, rectangular crosshair of the beam cannon on it directly. Normally it would be round, but he had switched off the blast-field indication, as he wouldn't miss anyway.

As the targeting alarm went off in his cockpit, confirming his lock, he spoke out over an open channel. "Gundam…you're just lucky I'm not a mobile doll." 

Moments before the beam cannon reached full power, he shifted his aim to the Gundam's right arm, holding the beam weapon. Another crosshair appeared within the rectangle, and target data came up. 

Then, he fired.

Another blinding cascade of yellow-orange light, and the Gundam hurled backwards. Walker's helmet darkened, the glass polarizing, so he couldn't see as the beam vaporized the Gundanium arm and knocked away the beam weapon. The long scythe-like device jerked backwards before exploding on its own. 

And once again, silence. The speakers that lined the Taurus cockpit, designed to replicate sound as though it could travel through space, made no sound. Walker sat still, wondering if he had won. _That was _damned _easy. Way too easy. _He wondered, had all those sacrifices made by the other soldiers, the Specials, the Alliance, the OZ…had it all been so stupid.

"Could we have avoided all of this," he mumbled. "By having more powerful weapons?" He sighed, and pressed a touch-screen in the Taurus cockpit. The program sequence for the Deathscythe capture was ran, and two of the mobile dolls produced their pistol-like harpoon guns and fired them, then began towing the Deathscythe towards the Colony. 

Walker turned his MD to face the Colony, and pulled back one of the levers, engaging flight-mode. The Taurus transformed quickly, storing both of its weapons, and fired its verniers. 

"So much for the future generations and the soldiers of tomorrow," he mumbled, almost angrily. "It's all about the damned weapons now. I should have stayed an engineer."

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**Author's Note: **I'm surprised if anyone still reads this, to be honest ^^;; I'm sort of just chugging along. This short chapter took so damn long, it's mind-boggling, but at least I edited out the grammar bugs. Some of them, anyway.

The next few chapters involve major changes, as well as Operation Nova and Artemis. Oh, and to any Sakura Taisen viewers out there, if you can recognize the Kana scene from Episode 7, good on you! 


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